Metamorphosis
by mosylu
Summary: After the arrival of the colony ship, old bonds stretch to the breaking point while new ones struggle to form. Most recently posted: Part 25
1. The Times, They Are A'Changing

(A/N) Hello all! This is the beginning of the obligatory multi-plotted colony-ship-arrival uber-fic. Enjoy.

The Times, They Are A'Changing

A wave crashed against a rock and sent up fine spray into True's face. She ducked away and fell on her butt. Blinking salt water out of her stinging eyes, she straightened up, swiping wet sand off her behind, before squatting down again and wrapping her arms around her legs. She went back to studying the weird green sort of crab in the shallow tidal pool, muttering observations into her gear, which was set to record. The crab-thing waved a claw at her, as if saying, Go away! Quit bothering me! She grinned.

"Whatcha lookin' at?" Uly asked from behind her.

"Don't know," True said, annoyed.

"C'n I see?" Without waiting for an answer, Uly crouched down beside her. "Euw, gross. Do those pinch?" He reached out, and the claws nipped. "Ow!"

"Guess so," True said, grinning again. "You bleeding?"

"Nuh-uh." Uly pouted over his reddened fingers.

"Um, the claws aren't sharp on the inside," True told her gear. "I don't think, anyway. But they look strong." She pulled a hand inside her jacket sleeve and reached down into the pool to pick it up. Julia said sometimes things like this oozed poison. _Secreted_, True corrected herself. _Oozed_ wasn't very scientific. "Go wash your hands," she said over her shoulder.

He did, then came back. "Is this for Julia?"

"Uh-huh."

"Can I help?"

"You are so annoying."

"Well?"

She let out a noise and said, "Wrap up your hands. Hold it like this--here. Don't let it pinch you again." She turned her voice recorder off.

"I'm not." He took it carefully and squinted at the claws it waved.

True scooted backwards slightly and sat back on a mostly dry rock. She shaded her eyes against the ferocious glitter of the waves, like someone had thrown handfuls of ground glass out into the water. The sun beat down on her head and shoulders, and when she pushed her hair out of her face, the top of her head felt hot. The wind off the sea was almost cold, though--it would be Moon Cross in a few weeks, the beginning of winter.

She looked over her shoulder at O'Neill Point, which bulged out and up from the land, hundreds of feet high. A mile up the beach, Singh Point formed an almost-twin to O'Neill, rising higher but not as far out into the water.

Someone shouted to her--"Hey there!"--and she waved back, battling a blush that nobody would see anyway. Baines and Walman were bringing in the morning's catch, the little one-sail fishing boat bobbing wildly in the open sea before gliding into the calmer waters of Virginia Inlet. They would offload it, eat lunch, and spend the afternoon cutting the fish they'd caught. She thought about joining them, but the chance to hang around Walman lost out to the reality of fish guts.

She flexed her toes in the cool sand and took a deep breath of sea air, salty and fishy and fresh and wild.

Ever since she'd gotten on this planet, she thought she loved every new place best, but New Pacifica was really the best. Sometimes she thought it might be nice to go back to the desert, with its oven heat and tough, gnarled plant life (her dad said she was bonkers if she missed that, but she did), or the mountains, with their caps of snow and about one square foot of level ground in the whole place, or the savannah, broad plains of grass that went on forever. But she would come back here, to the sea and the forests, the cliffs and the caves.

Her toes were getting a little cold, so she washed her feet free of sand and stuck her shoes back on. "Uly?"

"Uh-huh."

"Do you ever think . . ." She chewed her lip. She'd been thinking this, but preparing to say it out loud, it sounded sort of stupid. "Do you ever think maybe there's places people are meant to be?"

Uly looked up from the crab-thing, blinking at her a little. "What do you mean?"

True reached over and took the creature back. It was looking dried-out and unhappy, so she set it gently back in the pool. It sank in and started scuttling away. "I mean, like, you just belong."

"Like here?" Uly plumped back in the wet sand, looking around and breathing in the way she had.

"I guess."

He thought that over, and she looked at him. If anyone ever belonged someplace right away, it was Uly, and the place was G889.

"Know what I think?" he said finally.

Boy, did that beg for a snarky remark. True couldn't think of one right away, so she just said, "What?"

He looked over his shoulder at her. "I think," he said very seriously, "that you 'n' me, we always belonged here."

She looked at him skeptically. "Always?"

He nodded. "Even when we were back on the stations. We were really supposed to be here." He drew up his legs, wrapping his arms around them. "Maybe that's why I had the Syndrome," he said. "I was missing G889 so bad it made me sick."

"Okay," True said, pointing at him. "That's just making things up. How would you even know about G889 to miss it?" It was a neat idea, but it didn't make any sense.

He shrugged. "I dunno. I said maybe."

"And anyway, what about me? I didn't have the Syndrome. Your theory is unsound," she said loftily.

He threw wet sand at her. She shrieked, chucked a handful back, and they had a sandfight for a few minutes until Uly got some in his eye. "Ow! Ow! Owwww! Quit!"

"Stop rubbing! You'll grind it in! Hold still, let me--"

"Hey, that's cold!"

Once the sand was all washed out, they sat down again. Putting her emptied water bottle back in her pack, True found some bread wrapped up in plastic, which she split in half and shared with him as a silent apology.

He munched cheerfully, forgiving her right away. "But really," he said with his mouth full. "It's going to be so cool when all the other kids get here, and the Terrians fix them. Aren't you excited? Any day now," he said, echoing what his mom told him every time he asked when the colony ship was getting here. "Any day."

True didn't say anything. She'd never told Uly how on the stations, other kids usually didn't like her. They said she was weird, and bossy, and too boylike. Which was so not true.

Maybe a little.

But she saw no reason that the kids coming to G889 should be any different from the kids on the stations. They'd be worse, even. At least the kids she'd known on the stations had been drone kids, too. Her dad said these would probably be a bunch of top and mid-level kids. Their parents could afford units that weren't cramped little cubes, and they didn't know what it was like to put magazine pictures on the walls because it cost too much to buy fancy holo-screens that showed different windows every day.

True bit down on the end of her braid. She wasn't a drone anymore. Dad said they were out of debt because of Devon. And even if they had still been in debt, they were staying here, so it didn't matter. The stations were twenty-two years away, and the memories of cold, blocky steel and cramped units seemed dim and unreal. Here, everyone was going to live in the dorms until they got houses built, no matter what level they'd lived on in the stations. When they built the houses, they were all going to be big. _Huge_. And nobody would even need holo-screens, because they would have real windows that showed the real world outside, and instead of just looking, they could go out the door and run around.

"What about the healthy kids?" she asked. "I bet they won't like it. I bet they'll whine."

"No, they won't," Uly said cheerfully. The red in his eye was fading already.

"I bet they're scared of everything."

"So what? You were too."

"Was not."

"You screamed all the time," he said. "At everything. Bugs and rocks and birds--"

"You take that back."

He leapt to his feet and darted off. "Make me!" floated down the beach.

She raced after him, managing to forget the threat of more kids in New Pacifica. She was catching up when he skidded to a halt, spraying sand in front of him, and grabbed his gear. She jogged to a stop and thought about splashing him while he wasn't paying attention.

Before she could go down to the water and grab a handful, Uly said, "Yuh-huh. She's here. Yeah." He looked at her. "How come you turned your gear off?" he wanted to know.

Ooops. She'd shut it all the way off, not just the recorder. "'Cause I felt like it," she said, reaching up to flick it on.

"--are holding in orbit," Devon said. "True, there you are."

"Orbit?" True said. "Who?"

"The colony ship!" Uly yelled, jumping up and down on the sand. "It's here! It's here!"

True went cold.

Devon laughed. "Settle down, honey, they've still got to land. Come on up into town, both of you. We're going to need your help."

"'Kay." Uly switched off and grabbed her hand. "Come on! Let's go!"

"My bag," True said, jogging back for it. Slinging it over one shoulder, she dashed up the beach again, the pack bumping against one hip. "You got everything?" she yelled at Baines and Walman, who were dumping their fish into cold storage containers and piling those in the coolness of a cave as quickly as they could.

"We're fine," Baines shouted. "G'wan." Walman flapped a hand.

Well, darn.

Uly didn't wait for her, but started climbing up the wooden steps. Slinging her bag on her back, True started after him. "Come on, slowpoke!" he called down.

"Why are you so happy?" she grouched back.

He paused to look down at her. "Why aren't you?"

She puffed slightly as she got to the step below his. "It's all going to be different," she said breathlessly. "There's going to be whole bunches of people now--"

"It's not like they're strangers," he argued, starting up again.

"To me they are. You know them, I don't."

"Oh . . . yeah. I guess. But it'll be different better," he said confidently. "It's going to be great. You'll see."


	2. Light as a Feather

(A/N) Thanks for all your lovely replies and encouragement on the first chapter. I apologize for any and all gross inaccuracies in this chapter. One thing I'm not is a rocket scientist.

Light as a Feather

John saw his daughter and Uly racing each other to the door, and shook his head. How they had the energy for that after climbing up from the beach, he'd never know.

Alonzo looked at them and laughed. "At least someone's excited about this."

"Hey, I'm excited," John said as they ambled along. "I'm just not like some people who think everything's going to be hunky-dory easy."

After two years, Alonzo didn't have to ask who _some people_ was. "You really think something's going to happen with this landing?"

"I figure we should be prepared. The Council busted its ass to keep _us_ from landing. Doesn't make any sense they'd just wave and smile at the colony ship."

Alonzo shrugged, a yeah-I-guess sort of shrug. John knew that Alonzo thought he was being his usual pessimistic self. So did Devon, but she at least knew that it was better to prepare for the worst and get the best than the other way around.

He pushed open the door and found most of the Eden Advance team milling around the gathering space. As usual, the tiny group looked lost and sparse in the big room, with its rows of tables and benches. Julia and Yale were huddled in a corner, hammering out details. Morgan hunched over the communications console, hitting buttons like a classical pianist playing the Minute Waltz in thirty seconds. Devon asked him something, and he nodded, rattling off a string of numbers.

The guy was useful. Who knew?

True waved at him. "Dad! Dad! Where were you? The colony ship's here!"

"I heard a rumor." He ruffled her sweaty hair. "Got those blueprints for me, True-girl?"

She brandished her data pad. "Right here."

"Great. Be ready, I'm up first. Where's Uly?"

True pointed. "Over there."

The junior Adair perched on his chair, rocking back and forth slightly, his eyes shining. John grinned at him, then turned to his daughter again. "How you doing? Excited?"

She shrugged, but jittered from foot to foot like she had on that long-ago first day of kindergarten.

He tapped Devon on the shoulder. "Hey, lady."

She spun. "What took you so long?"

"I had to stop and do my hair," he drawled. "What's the status topside?"

"They're holding. They don't exactly understand what's going on, but they're holding." She said it all a little too fast. "I've given them a quick briefing, and they're getting the proper people up into the bridge to talk to us."

"That'd be Braxton on the other end for me," he said, before she could give him information he'd given her in the first place. "Got a gear channel?"

"Right, yes--" She checked her datapad. "Twenty-four-six-eleven. Don't forget to--"

"--key through the main comm system first," he finished for her. "_Got_ it, Adair." He tapped in a series of commands, and mechanical gibberish sounded in his ear as the gear started routing through Morgan's carefully constructed improvisation. He winced and dragged the headset down around his neck.

Devon kept scrolling through pages on her datapad, up and down, scanning the same pages over and over as if she might be missing something vitally important. He reached out and cupped her face in one hand. "Hey."

She looked up.

"Breathe," he ordered.

She frowned at him. "What?"

"Just do it. Breathe." The gear beeped in his ear, fully routed, but he had to get Devon settled first. She was jumpy, gearing up into totalitarianism, and needed to relax. She was the center of this operation--always had been. He rubbed his thumb over her cheekbone. "In through the nose and hold it." When she obeyed, he counted to ten and said, "'Kay, out."

She let the air go, tension visibly dissipating.

"Better?" he asked.

She did it again. "Yes," she said, and smiled at him.

They stood close, an island of calm in a sea of chaos. He leaned down and kissed her. "Let's do this thing."

She kissed him back, then stepped away and pivoted on her heel. "Okay, everybody!" she called out, catching the attention of the whole room. Even Morgan paused in his mad button-pushing. "It's a little earlier than we were expecting but we have planned this and we are ready, right?"

A cheer greeted this.

"I need Alonzo, True, and Uly in here with John, Morgan, and me."

"Everyone else out to the vehicles," John said. "You know what to do."

About half the group made for the door, and John motioned True closer to him. "Cargo level first, kiddo." While she scrolled through blueprints, tongue caught between her teeth, he put his gear back on, dialed the number, and flipped the eyepiece around. "John Danziger, head of Ops for New Pacifica. Hey, boss, you read me?"

* * *

Adam Braxton stared in disbelief at the face in his gear display. "What are _you_ doing down there, Jack? You're supposed to be asleep on the advance ship, two years back toward home."

Danziger's voice and image crackled slightly, as if they were being jury-rig routed. "Long, long story. I'll tell you when you get planetside. Meantime, we got some housekeeping to take care of. There's one hell of a good chance some of your cargo pods have been tampered with, enough to bring the whole ship down."

Braxton frowned. "That's a pretty wild story."

"Yeah, and I hope I'm wrong. But just in case--"

"All right, I'll run a diagnostic." He swung around, reaching out for a panel.

"Computer diagnostic's a good start, but it might not cut it," Danziger said. "I'd say a good old-fashioned eyeball check. Make that a double check--two different sets of eyeballs. Cargo pods, and escape pods too, just to be on the safe side."

"You--"

"I'm sure."

It sounded batshit crazy, but he'd trained John Danziger, back in Chicago block. The man didn't fly off the handle for anything. "That could take awhile," he noted, setting the maintenance computer to running its diagnostic, "and we've got a ship full of people who want to get planetside."

"Their problem, not mine."

"Ain't that the truth."

"Keep me posted?"

"Will do." Braxton set him on standby and called out his crew.

Across the cabin, the head doctor stood quietly speaking on his gear. "Four of them. Yes. No. Camelli, Taganaki, McNab, and Johnson. No, I really wouldn't recommend it. I understand we may have no other choice but to go to the escape pods, but until that time--" He broke off, listened some more, and sighed deeply. "Devon, I don't want to scare them."

Braxton curled his lip at nothing. Let the top-level crybabies get scared. Better than dying because they couldn't get themselves to the escape pods in time.

The computer diagnostic came up clean. Reports started coming in, and he bounced them to Danziger on automatic. Clean, clean, clean . . .

"Hey, boss, we got one fine mess here."

Braxton's attention snapped to the transmission. "What's that?"

"Have a look," his guy said, and the view in Braxton's eyepiece shifted from the other man's face to an open panel. "Melted all to shit."

"Damn me," Braxton breathed, staring at the mess of electronics like a man gazing at a slaughter. "Why didn't the computer catch it?"

"Don't know, but it'll never release."

"Right." Braxton took in a breath and let it out. "Right. Go on, check the next one down." He brought Danziger off standby. "We found one. Listen to this--"

"Melted, am I right? Like someone took a torch to it. You try to release it and it'll drag the ship out of orbit."

"Yeah," Braxton said slowly. "How'd you know?"

The other man smiled grimly. "Part of that long story. You're what, halfway through?"

"Yeah, and--" His gear beeped, signaling someone else trying to get ahold of him. "Wait."

* * *

"_Three?"_ Devon asked in disbelief.

"They weren't taking any chances," John said, holding his datapad out so she could see. Three sections of the cargo level blinked bright red. Three cargo pods that would never release, that would in fact pull the whole colony ship to screaming death if they tried. "That's not even the really fun part. Diagnostic shows that all power's been cut to the escape pods. Collectively, they couldn't run a night light, much less the life-support systems."

She pictured the possible outcome of using the untrustworthy, unpowered escape pods and broke out in a cold sweat. "Is there another option?"

"One," he said.

* * *

"You want us to land her over mass," Braxton said slowly, hoping it would sound more sensible in his own voice. It didn't.

"I said it was a rock and a hard place." A sudden splatter of static obliterated part of Danziger's next words. "--risk those pods, you'll never get home. There's your rock."

"Yeah, but the hard place could smear us a millimeter thin if we get it wrong. We've got close to seven extra kilotons riding here."

Danziger crossed his arms. "I guess you'd better get it right."

Willis waved at him from the console. "Braxton, over here."

"Hang on," he said, and went to see what the pilot wanted.

She leaned back in her seat to look up into his face. "What's the max power you can give me to the underside thrusters in the troposphere?"

"You're not going to do this."

"You got a better idea? As long as we don't release those three sabotaged cargos and we keep on our toes, we should be able to land her." She jerked her thumb toward the blue-green planet out the front window. "I don't want to spend my life on that dirtball, do you?"

Braxton stared at it for a second, then looked at the ceiling and swore. Then he turned to his gauges and looked over them. "I can safely give you about twenty-five percent extra on the right side," he said over his shoulder.

"Twenty-five? Seven kilotons is thirty-four percent over mass."

"Any more than twenty-five, the blowback's gonna take us all out."

Willis let out her breath, doing her piloty calculations. "Fine. Twenty-five it is." She flexed her fingers over the controls.

Braxton switched his gear off hold. "All right. We're in."

Danziger nodded, as if he'd expected nothing less. "See you on the ground," he said, and blinked out.

* * *

John took his gear off and nodded at her, indicating that the ops crew was in, and Devon nodded back. She turned back to her side of the bargain. "It's just a precaution, Miguel."

Miguel Vasquez snapped, "I don't like it! Pushing them all into escape pods--you know the delicacy of these children."

"Uly came through perfectly fine."

"There are four children still in cold sleep. I doubt Uly was. Braxton!"

"Yeah, what," said a voice off Miguel's screen.

"How much fuel do we have?"

"Not enough to orbit until we can repair the releases or power up those pods," the other voice said. "We're going down, Doc, whether it's under our own power or not."

Devon judged the moment right. "Miguel, even without power, those escape pods are specifically designed for an uncontrolled landing. They have shielding, they have padding, they have supplies . . . It's the best place anybody could be under these circumstances. Certainly better than wandering the corridors, asking what the shank's going on."

The doctor breathed for a moment, then pressed his lips together. "Fine. Fine." The screen erupted into static. He'd cut her off.

At least he'd agreed first.

* * *

The doctor's voice boomed over the ship's PA. "All medical personnel--"

Braxton flipped his own gear on to the ops announcement channel. "Guys, this is just a precaution, but get to your escape pods. Repeat, this is just a precaution. Strap yourself in but don't release them or close the doors. Keep your gear on. We're going to land over mass." He closed the channel and sat down, strapping himself in.

Willis looked at him sharply. "You're staying?"

"I trust you normally," he said dryly, hitting buttons, "but it seems to me you could use backup."

"Thanks."

"No charge."

They didn't say what they both knew--the closer they got to the ground, the smaller the chances anybody in the cockpit would live long enough to get to an escape pod if it all went to hell.

Braxton barely noticed when Vasquez scurried out to his safe escape pod. Willis snapped orders over her shoulder as she attempted to compensate for the extra weight. "Vector's too steep. I need back thrusters, forty percent."

He shoved a lever and felt the slight shift as the back thrusters kicked in, changing the angle of their descent. They dropped like a stone through the upper atmosphere, the temperature inside the cockpit rising with the increasing air friction outside. He kept an eye on the fuel level, calculating desperately the amount the twenty-five percent extra would require. "Cutting back thrusters now."

"Roger that. Crossing the mesopause--altitude is ninety."

* * *

Devon squinted at the image on the big screen. "It's tilting. Why is it tilting?"

"Heavier side," John said. "Unless they compensate soon, it'll flip them over and start 'em spinning." His voice was low, but her son had sharp ears.

Uly grabbed her hand. "Mom! Are they gonna crash and blow up?"

Her blood chilled. "Not if I can help it," she said as calmly as possible.

"We need to tell the Terrians," Uly said. "Where's it going to land?"

The landing would more than likely send shock waves through the ground, and while the Terrians wouldn't thank them for the impact itself, they might appreciate the warning. "You're right," she said. "It'll be in . . ." she caught up a map. ". . . about this area. Can you do that, sweetie?"

Uly nodded, his face pinched and serious, and squatted down, pressing his hands flat to the earth.

* * *

The horizon leveled out as Willis lit the right underside thrusters. "Altitude fifty-four. We're in the stratosphere. Punch up underside thrusters _now_ please."

Using the side of his hand, Braxton shoved a row of levers up, then carefully nudged three of them up even further. He stared at the distance between twenty-five and thirty-four, wondering if he had the fuel . . . if he dared risk the blowback . . . if nine percent was enough to just crack the _Virginia_ like an egg.

The fuel gauge dipped lower, lower, lower--if they sucked it dry, all the thrusters would cut out together, and the rest of their lives would be contained in a very short, nasty freefall.

* * *

The vehicles stood waiting. All fifteen advancers stood in the square, ready to go. Julia had her diaglove strapped on and Alonzo held her bag, stuffed to the bursting point. Right now, though, they could only watch.

Like a shooting star, the ship screamed through the sky. They could see it with naked eyes now. The whole group pressed close together as if physical contact could avert disaster.

Bess turned away, hunched protectively over her swollen belly as if the child within could somehow see. She began to whisper a prayer, her voice muffled against Morgan's shoulder. "--full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art--"

Devon held Uly against her, ready to turn him away from an explosion. She thought, _What were we thinking?_ Even more nightmare pilgrimages would have been better than this. Ripples of terror washed through her mind, that this was it, this was where it would end, all her promises going up in flames. All those people she'd convinced to come here--

Her free hand groped for John's. His fingers wove through hers. "Getting close," he said quietly, half to True, pressed against his side, and half to Devon. "She's slowing--"

Devon thought, _Enough?_

* * *

Willis's voice was icy cool. "We are at twenty-five--fifteen--"

Too fast, Braxton thought. Too damn fast--they _were_ going to crack like an egg.

Unless--

Without letting himself overthink, he slid the three levers up to thirty-four. He counted seconds off under his breath and flicked them back down, half a second before the disastrous blowback reaction would have started.

"Ten--five--three--two--"

With twin lurches that wrenched Braxton's restraints to their limit, the colony ship slammed into the ground.

* * *

Even from kilometers away, the thud reverberated, sending some of them staggering.

"Did they hit?"

"Did they make it?"

"Dad?" True asked uncertainly.

Alonzo said into his gear, "_Virginia_, this is New Pacifica. Sheila, do you copy? Sheila? C'mon!"

* * *

Braxton sagged in his seat, the acrid smell of stressed electronics in his nose. His shoulders and chest throbbed under the straps. He undid them and massaged the spots where he was going to have amazing bruises. Damn, he hoped nothing vital had cracked. "Nice one, Willis."

Her straps already undone, she rolled one shoulder gingerly, then the other. "Light as a feather." She keyed the comm.

* * *

"_Virginia_ to New Pacifica. Come in, New Pacifica."

"_Virginia!_ You guys okay?"

"We are on the ground, and oh so glad to be here."

He let out a whoop, one echoed by the rest of the advance crew. "Nice of you to drop by," he said, once they'd settled. "Coordinates?"

"On their way."

Devon peered over his shoulder. "That's only two and a half klicks from here."

"Well," Alonzo said, "she _is_ the second-best pilot for the money."

Devon rolled her eyes. "All right, people, to the vehicles. We have some colonists to pick up!"

They rushed for the vehicles, but Devon stayed where she was. She felt as if, when she looked down, she would be able to see every individual joint in her body trembling and not to be trusted.

John paused and turned. "Well?" he said. "You're going to be late, y'know."

With that, she felt the strength rush back into her again, and she grinned at him. "You wouldn't leave without me," she said, and went to take her place in the cockpit of one of the transrovers.


	3. Are We There Yet?

Are We There Yet?

The air tasted strange.

That was the first thing Trent Sadler noticed as he wheeled his son's chair down the gangplank. The air flooded into his lungs, cool and somehow thick. He felt in his pocket for his son's inhaler.

"Wow," his son whispered, a little wheeze in his voice. "Oh _wow."_

Trent crouched. "Son," he said, holding up the inhaler.

Max sighed deeply, but opened his mouth for the medicine. Trent listened to his breathing, wondering if that landing had done permanent damage. The doctor in their pod had looked all the children over and cleared them to go outside, but what if something had broken inside Max that the diaglove hadn't picked up on?

And this alien air, it didn't feel like air at all. It hadn't been filtered, treated, heated, or cooled. It couldn't be good for Max to breathe this stuff.

"Dad," Max said, "Look at the sky. Look."

"Mmm," he said. Where was a doctor when you needed one? He stood up, looking around. Every doctor he could see was involved with a child already. Even the nurses were busy. He might have to settle for a medtech.

A sharp whistle cut through the babble, and Max cried, "Look, it's Uly's mom!"

Trent straightened, his heart thudding. It was Devon, standing on a slight rise. Even though her clothes were well-worn and the sun had darkened her skin, she still looked fit and beautiful. "Thanks," she said to a huge man to one side of her, who stood with his arms around two kids. "Can everyone hear me? Everyone? How about in the back? Can you all see me?"

General noises of assent answered her.

"Good." She laughed a little. "I'm used to addressing a group of fifteen. This is going to take a little adjustment." She spread her arms wide. "Welcome to G889. This isn't a VR, this isn't a dream, this is _home."_

Trent started clapping, and a few others followed suit. She waited until it died out to continue. "I know to you it's only been a few days since we left the stations. For us in Eden Advance, though, it's been two years, filled with adjustments, hard work, and unexpected challenges. But they've also been full of discovery and wonder. I think it's safe to say those two years have changed us forever."

The advance group, spaced around her, exchanged glances and grins.

Her face fell into serious lines. "You all knew my son Uly. He was eight when we left. No Syndrome child has ever lived past the age of nine."

Trent felt his heart go cold. Was she going to say that she had lost Uly? That even leaving everything behind and bringing him to this place hadn't done any good? He put his hand on Max's head, the metal of his son's headpiece cold under his palm.

"Uly, honey, come here."

The smaller of the two children with the huge man stepped away and climbed the rise. She put her hands on his narrow shoulders and turned him to face the crowd. "This is Uly today."

A deep, deep silence fell, broken only by the _hish_ of wind through the long grass. Trent couldn't tear his eyes from the child she held close. He was afraid to blink, just in case it was an illusion.

The Uly he'd known had been tiny, pale, and barely strong enough to walk a block on his own. This boy was tanned and smiling, his tumbled curls shining golden-brown in the son. He was thin, true, but it was the wiry, leggy look of a growing boy.

A normal, healthy, growing boy.

"My son is ten," she said, and the dazzling smile broke out again. "He was born with the Syndrome, and he's ten."

Uly twisted around to look up at his mother. "Mo-om. Ten and a _half."_

As if his petulant correction had broken a spell, laughter erupted, and then cheers. Next to Trent, Maggie Shaw burst into tears, and her husband put his arms around her.

A small hand tugged at his shirt. "Dad? Am I going to be like that in two years? Huh?"

"Yes," Trent vowed, kissing the top of his head. "I swear, Max, you will." The thin, thready hope that had pulled him away from the stations had just bloomed. _It could happen._ A Syndrome child could live. Not the limp-along existence their children had been doomed to since their diagnosis, but real, glowing, growing life.

"New Pacifica is about two and a half kilometers to the northeast," Devon said once the celebration had died down. "The ground is too uneven for chairs, so the Syndrome children are going to ride in the Transrovers. We may have to make a couple of trips, but everything is ready and waiting for you once you get to town."

The group's silence broke up into excited babbling. Trent glanced around. "Max, I'll be right back." He stepped away to find a doctor, but the best he could do was a harried nurse who promised to get to Max next. Well, it was better than nothing. Biting back a sigh, he returned to find the huge man who had stood at Devon's side crouched in front of his son's chair.

"Hey, buddy. I got a seat in that Transrover all ready for you, what do you say?"

"It's way high up," Max said doubtfully.

"Yeah, you bet. You can see everything." The man grinned and held out his arms. "Come on, you know you want to."

"Excuse me!" Trent interrupted. "Are you a medical professional?"

The huge man spared him a glance. "No, but I am an experienced father." He pointed at a skinny girl loading bags into the big transport. "That's her over there, if you wanna check my credentials."

Of course, _his_ child was healthy, and always had been. The sour puddle of envy settling in his stomach was so familiar Trent barely noticed it. "Look, my son is a Syndrome child," he said, dropping a protective hand to Max's frail shoulder. "You can't sling him around like--"

"A kid?"

Trent took in his breath through his nose. "Thank you for trying to help," he said evenly, "but I would feel more comfortable with someone who's trained in handling children like Max."

The man straightened up, hooking his hands in his back pockets. "Whatever you say," he said, his eyes cool. "I'll get Julia over here. That's Dr. Julia Heller. She's trained." He glanced down at Max and, before Trent could do anything about it, gave his hair a ruffle. "Next time, buddy."

The woman who came didn't look very much like a doctor, dressed in patched pants and a faded shirt instead of a pristine lab coat. But she took Max's vitals with cheerful competency. "Good numbers," she told him. "Let's get you into that Transrover."

The big vehicle was another shock. They had made some attempt at comfort by lining the bed with blankets and cushions, but those couldn't disguise the fact that this was a cargo vehicle, not a passenger one. "Excuse me," Trent said. "Isn't there something--safer? There aren't any restraints in that thing--"

The big man, swinging himself up into one of the side-along cargo bins, gave him a disgusted look. "How fast do you think we'll be going, buddy?"

Trent's eyes narrowed. "My son is very delicate--"

"Trust me when I say, you could walk faster than this."

Before Trent could formulate a properly scathing reply, Dr. Heller cut in. "Danziger's right. The Rover's top speed isn't very fast, and it's barely two and a half klicks to New Pacifica. A lot of parents are riding with their children. If you'd feel safer--"

"Yes," Trent said. "Yes, I would."

He had to crawl up the fat tire, his slick-soled shoes slipping on the rubber. Danziger didn't offer to help, but instead hoisted children into the cargo bin, teasing them and pointing out how far they could see from their height. They giggled or stared, completely comfortable with this rough-handed giant. Well, children didn't always know what was good for them.

Trent got Max settled into a corner, wrapping a blanket around his legs. "How do you feel, son?"

"M'okay," Max said, staring out over the rolling hills. "The doctor said my numbers were good. Do you think I could walk?"

"It's much too far," Trent said automatically.

"Some of the other kids are."

"Those are the healthy ones, son, you know that."

Max rested his chin on the lip of the cargo bed. "Uly's walking."

"He's healthy now." A shiver of hope ran through Trent as he said it. "Just be patient. You'll be taking long walks someday."

Max sighed but didn't say anything more. He just kept staring out at the landscape as if drinking it in. Trent brushed a hand over his hair. The great gamble, the biggest risk he'd ever taken or would ever take, was going to pay off. He knew it. Trent had left behind his home, his job, everything that was familiar and safe, but he would do more than that for Max.

And maybe now that the journey was behind them, he could turn his energy to his relationship with Devon Adair. It had been on hold far too long.

The line of Rovers filled up with parents and children. Chatter and giggles filled the air, excitement crackling like electricity. There was a squeal of, "Omygod, a bird! A real bird!" from Marie O'Connor. Most of the children and even some of the parents jumped up to see.

The advancers looked at them tolerantly, grinning. Trent could pick them out as advancers the moment he saw them. Even apart from the faded and worn clothing and the sun-darkened skin, there was a comfortable competency about the way they walked over the uneven ground and squinted against the falling sun. They seemed to read each others' minds, making sure that things were taken care of while all around them, colonists stared and fumbled.

Trent wondered if he would ever become so comfortable in this strange place.

"Hey, Max! Max!"

Using the side of the Max hoisted himself to a halfway standing position. "Uly! Here!"

"Hey!" Uly clambered up the wheel and crawled into the bed next to Max. "You're finally here, this is so cool!"

Close to, he looked even more healthy than he had. His skin was tanned, his hair streaky with sun, and he didn't have a single piece of medical apparatus on his body. Trent stared at him, wondering if his hand would pass through this dream of a healthy boy.

Max poked Uly, hard, in the upper arm.

"Hey, what was that for?" Uly complained amiably.

"Wanted to see if you were for real," Max said.

"I am."

"How?" Max asked bluntly.

All over the Transrover, heads turned. Suddenly, Uly and Max were the focus of everyone's attention.

"Um," Uly said uncomfortably.

"It's this natural setting, isn't it?" Danielle Grant said. "I always knew it would help, but--" She wrapped her arms around her pale, undersized four-year-old. Melissa stared enviously at Uly.

"You're gonna love it here," Uly said quickly. "It's the best place ever."

"I will if it'll make me well," Max said.

"It will. Promise." Uly looked around. "Uhoh, I think we're going. I'll talk to you later, 'kay?"

"You don't want to ride?" Trent asked.

"No, I like walking," Uly said. He stood up, swung his legs over the side of the vehicle, and before Trent could so much as put out a hand, the boy had launched himself into open space.

For a moment, Uly seemed to hang in the air, arms out, knees bent, overlong hair flying. Then gravity took over and he dropped to the ground.

All Trent's breath whooshed out at once. "_Uly!"_

Uly turned, blinking. "What?"

"You could have really hurt yourself."

"What? Oh, no, it's not that far."

Trent looked down. From here, it seemed like six feet at least.

"Anyway, the ground's soft," Uly said.

That could be true. He could swear he'd seen Uly's feet sink in, almost to the ankle, before he'd straightened up. Of course, he'd seen it from an angle.

"Wow," Max said. "Dad, will I be able to do that?"

"No," Trent said firmly.

"See you later," Uly called out, and rushed away.

"Hang on, everyone, we're starting up," Danziger called from the front of the vehicle. Trent tensed, putting an arm around Max. There was a great lurch and they set off across the uneven ground, rocking from side to side.

Trent winced. "It's not far," he told his son.

"I know." Max pointed. "Look, Dad. Are those trees?"

"I suppose it must be," Trent said doubtfully. "Though Earth trees were green."

Danielle leaned over. "The leaves have turned, Trent. It's autumn, right? Isn't it?" she asked Dr. Heller.

"That's right," Dr. Heller said.

Danielle let out a happy sigh. "It's so much more beautiful than the museums and the VRs." She grinned hugely. "Can you imagine, real seasons?" She hugged Melissa close. "You can play in the leaves, sweetie."

"Now?" Melissa asked.

Danielle hesitated, then smiled brightly. "Next year. When you're better."

"Winter starts in about a month," Danziger said. "You guys can have snowball fights."

Max's eyes lit up. "Dad! Snow!"

"No," Trent said firmly. "Max, it'll be too cold for you."

"But--"

"Do you want to get sick?"

"I am sick," Max mumbled.

"You have a condition," Trent corrected. "But you will get sick if you go out in the snow."

Max sighed and looked at the trees again.

Trent was just starting to get a little queasy from the lurching when Danziger climbed back into the cargo bed. He called out, "Okay, everyone, listen up." The chatter cut off as if a switch had been flipped. "We're going to get into New Pacifica in a few minutes. It's not going to be what you're expecting. We had some changes in plans, but you all have a roof and a bed."

"What about the hospital?" Trent asked.

Dr. Heller stood up, anchoring herself to a support pole. "If you want to admit your children to the hospital for tonight, I can show you where that is, but give us about half an hour to get the staff familiarized and all the machinery on."

"For right now, find the door with your name on it and put your stuff in your rooms," Danziger said.

Trent frowned. "Aren't there drones or robots for that?"

Danziger paused and stared down at him. "Where did you live on the stations?" he said.

Strange question. "Level four east," Trent said. "Manhattan block."

Danziger nodded, as if a suspicion had been confirmed. "Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, there aren't any drones here, and the robots we do have are doing more important stuff. You'll have to carry your own luggage."

They were coming up on a cluster of long, low buildings . . . two or three, from what Trent could see. Storehouses, he thought. The town itself couldn't be too far away. Then he saw the openings in the walls. He frowned.

Why would a storehouse need windows?

The big vehicle halted. Max tried to stand. "Dad? Are we there?"

"Not just yet, son," he said, making him sit down again. They couldn't be. These boxy buildings couldn't be anything but storehouses. They were made out of _wood._

"All right, end of the line," Danziger said, leaping down. "All ashore who's goin' ashore."

"Wait," Ben O'Connor said. "This is it?"

"New Pacifica. Population a hell of a lot more than it was this morning."

Trent stared, waiting for him to admit his joke, climb back up into the Rover, and tell the driver to keep going. But the door opened and a bearded man joined Danziger on the ground. "Who's first?" he called out.

Oh God. This _was_ it.

Four raw wooden buildings arranged around a square. You could walk from one edge to the other in five minutes. Less. This was New Pacifica? This was where they were supposed to live for the rest of their lives?

"Those are the dorms," Danziger said, pointing at two of the buildings. "A's are over in the far corner of the northern one, Z's are right about here. They're two-person rooms, so you might be sharing."

"Sharing?" Horror piled on top of horror. "Sharing private quarters?"

"If you don't feel like sharing, we have plenty of tents," Danziger drawled.

"This is temporary, right?"

Danziger and the bearded man exchanged looks. "You mean will you be living here forever? No. But unpack anyway."

Still boggling, Trent managed to get himself and Max out of the Rover without killing either of them. He looked around for the chair, but Max said, "Dad, I wanna walk, please can I walk, _please_?"

It was only a few steps to the nearest door. Trent sighed. "Hold my hand and be careful, son. This ground is uneven." He looked again at the dorms, already missing his big level-four unit back at the stations, with holo-frames, original art, and every amenity known to mankind. God knew who had it now.

"It's all one level, you know."

Trent turned to see Danziger looking past him at the dorms. "Excuse me?"

"The dorms," he said, flashing a smile like a shark's. "All one level. That's the way it is around here."

Before Trent could answer that very odd statement, the man had climbed up into the Transrover to retrieve another child.

* * *

"Here it is," Julia said, a bubble of pride swelling up in her. "The hospital." She loved this neat, straight building, all warm pale wood. It had been the very first building that had gone up. Devon's idea, but one that nobody had voted against, a bit of generosity that still warmed Julia. They'd slept here for a month, so delirious with joy at having a real roof over their heads that the increased lack of privacy had barely bothered them. As it was, Morgan had managed to get Bess pregnant here, a fact that still made Danziger's eye twitch slightly.

As Julia always did, she smiled up at the sign over the double doors, which said "New Pacifica General." Underneath those words, if the light hit it right, you could sometimes read the traces of what Alonzo had originally painted: "The Dr. Feelgood Center for Full Body Medicine." She had made him paint over it while the rest of the advancers crowded behind their tents to muffle their whoops of laughter.

She pushed the double doors open rather grandly, propping them open with the rocks that were kept outside for that purpose. The phalanx of doctors, nurses, and med-techs shuffled in behind her, their footsteps tentative on the wooden floor.

The setting sun flooded the western windows, but most of the hospital was cloaked in darkness. Julia moved through the shadows with the ease of experience, her sturdy boots thumping cheerfully. "We usually don't have the electricity on in here," she called out over her shoulder. "But the solar panels have been absorbing all day." She checked the battery levels and found them full to the brim. "Any machines we need for tonight should be just fine."

She opened the switchbox and used the side of her hand to flip several switches at a time, with thick _ka-chunk_ noises. She liked that brisk, competent sound, echoing around her hospital. With each _ka-chunk,_ another group of overhead lights switched on, illuminating the rows of beds, the sturdy tables, the quiet machines. Danziger had worked himself practically blind over the electrical diagrams, balancing the mind-boggling amount of power needed against the depressingly finite capacities of the solar panels that they'd been able to get back from the Grendlers.

"Offices are on the eastern end," she said, closing the switchbox. "There's a nurse's station for every ten beds. That door down there opens up to the medical dorms. As soon as we get around to it, there's going to be a passageway, so when winter comes you won't have to go out in the cold." She turned, still talking. "There are enough beds to accommodate any non-Syndrome--" She stopped.

Most of the people she'd led in here were still huddled back by the doors, looking around as if they'd asked for a full cardiopulmonary/respiratory monitoring system and gotten a stethoscope. A few of them had fanned out, stepping gingerly around the straight wooden beds, twitching at their lab coats again and again as if making sure nobody could mistake them for someone who worked in a place like this.

Julia hooked her hands behind her back, suddenly aware of her messy hair, the frayed hem of her shirt, the rip starting on one knee. She drew herself very straight and finished her sentence. "To accommodate any non-Syndrome patients. We also have cots in storage that can be set up in the event of a quarantine situation."

The head nurse nudged a freestanding wooden panel set up between two beds. It had little wheels at the base. MacDonald nudged it again, harder, and raised a brow when it skidded away from her.

That had been Baines's idea, those moving walls. "We designed the layout for optimum modularity," Julia said. "All the furniture--Everything can be moved very easily. If we need to."

Miguel Vasquez picked up a corner of the blanket on one bed, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger with an incredulous expression on his face. Julia just stopped herself from yanking it out of his grasp and smoothing it down. It was one of the ones she'd made herself.

She cleared her throat. "It's perfectly sterile, I assure you. The fiber is a flax-like plant that grows wild, and all the dyes are vegetal." The crew had spent weeks on those blankets, the lumpy first attempts spread proudly over their own beds.

Miguel dropped the blanket and wiped his fingers on his lab coat.

"We--uh--we lucked out a little," Julia said into the echoing silence. "We didn't lose too many machines to Grendlers, and we managed to trade for most of them back. What we have should be sufficient."

They looked at her, obviously with not a clue what a Grendler was. Of course. How would they know?

Miguel nodded a few times, then patted her heavily on the shoulder. His voice was too hearty. "Don't worry, Dr. Heller. This should be--fine." He looked around, and when his eyes met MacDonald's, his pasted-on smile slipped a little. "For the time being."


	4. Not What I Wanted to Hear

Soundtrack Note

John and Devon's dance: In the Mood by Glenn Miller

Alonzo and Julia's dance: Dream a Little Dream of Me. Pick your favorite version.

Not What I Wanted to Hear

Sitting at a long bench table around the edge of the square, chowing on the mess of vegetables and processed protein that he'd been served on a clunky grey-green clay plate, Braxton listened to the saga of the past two years with a raised brow. Traveling for months on end, evading the Council, dealing with illness, weather, alien creatures, penal colonists . . . it was like an adventure right out of the holocinemas.

"Sounds like you got enough excitement down here for anyone," he said to Danziger, who sat across from him.

"Hell, yeah," Danziger said under the sound of Devon Adair's recital. "We were so excited sometimes we could hardly stand it."

Braxton laughed. "You'll be glad to get back home."

True looked up at that. "We're not going back," she said.

Braxton looked around, barely suppressing a shudder. What a shitty place. "Don't joke like that, kiddo."

Danziger said, "It's not a joke. We're staying here."

The fork froze halfway to Braxton's lips. He stared at the younger man, who met his gaze steadily, as if he'd been waiting the whole night to say that.

Braxton set the fork down and picked up his cup. It was almost empty. He took care of that, then held it out. "True, how about you go get me some more--" He paused, trying to remember what kind of alien fruit had gone in the cider. "Some more."

She didn't take it. "Anything you want to say to my dad, you can say in front of me," she said instead.

"Baby," Danziger said. "Give us a moment."

She looked from one man to the other, then let out a huff of exasperation and snatched Braxton's mug. _God, she's grown_, he thought. Although she didn't look a thing like her dad, the way she stalked off toward the bar brought back memories of the adolescent Jack Danziger, mostly rage and sass.

Braxton looked away from the child, to the father, and said, "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

"No," Danziger said.

"You're staying here," Braxton said.

"Yeah."

"_Here." _Braxton slapped the wooden table--god, real wood!--for emphasis.

"Figured we might move around a little from this exact spot."

"Don't mess with me, Jack--" He caught the warning flash. "John." There were times to call a man by his childhood nickname, and this wasn't one of them. Although if you asked Braxton, John was behaving like a kid, impulsive and thoughtless. "You're not a drone anymore. You're out of debt. Both of you. You're full citizens."

"Right," John drawled. "We'll get back and the Council's gonna say, 'Damn, are you out of debt? Well, here, here's a nice two-bedroom unit for you, a good job where you're not just a faceless robot, and a place for your kid in university.'" He gave a humorless laugh. "You know better. You've seen it. Back there, citizenship's just on paper. Nothing would change."

"And this is better?" Braxton looked around. "We're eating food grown in dirt, off clay plates, in a wooden shack. You're kidding me, right? You don't have to do this."

John looked around, too, and shrugged. "Yeah, but see, I want to."

"Want to?" Braxton echoed incredulously.

John looked back at him. "I like it here. True likes it here. Good place to be."

"Right. It's Nirvana."

"Hell, no, but it's better than what we left behind."

There was a ripple of laughter at something the Adair woman said, and John glanced over his shoulder. Adair happened to look their way, and for a moment her smile shifted from the bright, public, pasted-on one to something warm and intimate.

John returned it.

"So that's it," Braxton said sharply.

John looked back. "What?"

"The Adair woman. You're bangin' her."

John's fist was halfway to his face when it paused in the air. Braxton could almost see the muscles tremble as he lowered his hand. "Say that again," he said in a low voice, "and you will lose a tooth."

"What are you, in love with her?"

John looked him in eye. "Yeah."

* * *

Trent ate his meal slowly, so involved in Devon's story that he hardly noticed the strange-tasting vegetables. He had a hard time processing the fact that it had all happened just in the short time since he'd last seen Devon.

"But we made it, we're here, and now so are you," Devon finished up. "You all have a whole new life waiting, and I'm so eager to get it started." To scattered, tentative applause, she sat down across from Trent. "Whew." She took a drink, but her voice was still husky from speaking for so long.

"Hey, Mom," Uly said. "How come you didn't say anything about the--"

"Easy, honey," she cut in.

"But--"

"Remember, we were going to wait a little while to tell everything about our friends?"

Uly persisted. "But I--"

"Honey," Devon said.

He must have heard the steel in her voice, because he let out a sigh and started eating again. Trent couldn't look away from him, not even to wonder about the odd exchange, and neither could any of the other parents at the table. Devon's son shoveled down food like it was going out of style, a perfectly normal appetite for a ten-year-old. Trent's own son, on the other hand, poked at his salad without scooping any onto the fork.

Devon leaned over and said, "Hi, Max-a-million. Don't you like your salad?"

"It's okay," he said listlessly.

Uly rolled his eyes. "But it has _vitamins_," he said in a mockery of his mother's voice. "Vitamins are _good_ for you."

She rolled her eyes, too. "Okay, honey, that's just about enough from you. How about you go get some dessert for the table?"

"What is it?"

"Fruit. And if you get us a box, you can save all the greenfruit for yourself."

"Cool!" Uly rushed off. Trent stared after him, trying to picture Max running.

"He's right, you know," Devon said, drawing his attention. "The salad may not taste wonderful, but it does have a lot of necessary vitamins and minerals."

"Good, good," Dr. Miguel Vasquez said. "We need that after all the cold sleep."

"It must be something about the soil," Trent said. "Or maybe being grown under real sunlight. It doesn't taste quite like the vegetables on the stations."

Devon hesitated an instant before saying rather casually, "No reason it should. The greens are native to this planet."

Darla Ketchum dropped her fork. "You mean these are indigenous plants?" She yanked the plate away from her younger daughter and said to her older one, "Molly, spit that out."

"Wait, Darla, it's perfectly fine!" Devon said before Molly could follow orders. "I promise you, Julia tested everything thoroughly, and we've been eating them for months with no ill effects."

"They seem to be perfectly fine," Miguel said to Darla. "Angie really should eat. She needs her strength."

Darla looked down at the plate, then with enormous reluctance put it back in front of her younger daughter. Angie promptly scooped up an entire forkful of the lettuce she'd toyed with earlier.

Miguel said, "I'm sorry I wasn't here, Devon."

Devon waved a hand. "It was just one of those things. You couldn't have helped it. Plus, Julia did a wonderful job taking care of us."

"Yes, it looks like she has."

Rita Vasquez shot her husband a look, but didn't say anything.

"She was tireless," Devon said. She laughed a little. "Some days I thought we'd have to knock her out with her own sedaderm. But it all paid off. We couldn't cultivate anything on the move, so we got a lot of our nutrition from native flora and fauna." She smiled. "It was better than spirulina. That's something we got tired of _very_ fast."

"You can cultivate now," Darla's husband Rob said. "What's wrong with Earth vegetables?"

"Not all of them do well in this soil, and even the ones that finally took aren't mature. Frankly, I think it's going to prove more efficient in the long run to plant the native fruits and vegetables. And you'll find ones you like."

Max let his fork drop with a clatter. His plate was still almost full, but Trent let it go. He wasn't surprised Max didn't like the taste of alien vegetables.

Uly came back, toting a crate full of fruit. Instead of leaping to her feet and relieving her child of the burden, Devon glanced over her shoulder. "Got that, honey?"

"Uh-hunh," the boy grunted. He set it on the bench and picked out a yellow, waxy-skinned ovoid. "Max, look, these ones are so good. You gotta peel 'em but they're real sweet. I can peel it all in one piece, look." Tongue caught between his teeth, he dug his fingernails into the peel.

"Can I have one?" Angie asked.

Darla cleared her throat. "Aren't you full, baby?"

"They're really very good, Darla," Devon said, picking one out. "A little like an orange, but not quite. Uly, why don't you split that up and let everyone have a piece? There's plenty more in here."

In order to support her, Trent took one of the sections and bit in warily. Tart, sweet juice flooded his mouth, and he looked at the greeny-orange flesh in surprise. "It's--it's not bad," he said. He hesitated, then handed Max a piece. "Go ahead and try it, son."

The fruit made the rounds of the table. Even Darla eventually tried it, and gave Angie a piece, after the little girl pestered her for five minutes straight.

"Would you like some more?" Devon asked him. "You'll have to peel this one, I'm afraid."

"No, that's fine. They're great, but I'm full."

She smiled at him, stopping his heart, and started peeling for herself. "How do you like New Pacifica?"

"It's not what I was expecting," he said diplomatically.

She split the peeled fruit into several sections and started eating one. "Well, no. But plans changed."

"I can't believe you went through all that. It must have been horrible." He wished he could have been here for her.

"Parts of it," she allowed. "But not everything."

"Well, it hasn't disagreed with you too much. You look incredible."

She blinked at him, as if surprised. "Well. Thank you."

He edged closer, secure in the knowledge that nobody was paying attention, not even their children. "Can I talk to you?"

"We are talking," she said.

"No, I mean, in private." Through the babble of conversation all over the square, Trent could just hear that someone had put on music--something old-fashioned and jazzy. He opened his mouth to suggest a dance when a deep voice intruded.

"Hey, Adair."

_Him_ again, Trent thought in disgust.

But Devon looked almost ludicrously happy to see him. "Hey, Danziger."

Uly jumped up on the bench to see him better. "Hi, John! Where's True? You gotta meet True," he said to Max.

"She's over there." John swung him down from the bench with ease, and Uly darted off. John shifted the crate of fruit and sat in the vacated space next to Devon. She was on the tall side for a woman, but next to that hulking brute she looked almost delicate.

She said, "Everyone, this is John Danziger, head of ops. I couldn't do without him."

"Well, hell," Danziger said. "A colony ship should land every day if you're gonna be this nice to me." He pointed at her plate, and the several sections of fruit still on it. "You done with that?"

She made a noncommittal noise, and, to Trent's horror, Danziger hooked a finger in the side of the plate and pulled it over in front of him. Devon barely seemed to notice. "John, these are the Doctors Vasquez, Miguel and Rita. The Ketchums are over there--that's Rob and Darla, and their daughters Molly and Angie. Oh--yes--Trent Sadler and his son Max."

"We've met," Trent said.

"Not officially," Danziger said. He wiped juice off his fingers and shook hands all around, even with the children. His hand was calloused and rough, and his grip so strong that Trent had to massage his hand under the table. He stared at Danziger, wondering if that had been intentional.

The other man didn't seem to notice. "So listen," he said to Devon when that was taken care of. "Morgan's had the music on for ten minutes and Bess is too fat to jitterbug. If we don't get some people on that floor soon, he's gonna cry."

"Well, nobody wants to see that," she said.

"Nope. Figure you and I should set the example, what do you say?"

"As long as it's for a good cause," she returned, getting to her feet. "Everyone, please feel free to join us." Almost before she was done speaking, Danziger had hauled her off like a caveman.

They danced alone for only a few measures before more couples trickled out. Staring at them, Trent tried to convince himself that they really were just setting the example. But he had danced with Devon before, at society functions. In a formal gown, heels, and perfectly matched jewelry, she'd never smiled the way she did now, in hiking boots and patched pants, dancing with a drone.

Darla said, "Trent."

He tore his eyes away from Devon. All the adults at the table were looking at him with varying degrees of pity and sympathy.

"It doesn't mean anything," Darla said. "It can't possibly."

"Right," he said hollowly, looking at the way Devon laughed through a spin. "It can't possibly."

* * *

Julia pulled her lab coat around her and pushed her hair back into place. Pins were working their way out of her neat upsweep. She'd already lost one down her collar. It was somewhere in the small of her back, slithering around between cloth and skin, driving her crazy. Had she forgotten how annoying they were? Or had the nature of hairpins changed in just two years?

She'd spent most of those two years with her hair in a sloppy ponytail, or loose folded-over bun, or perhaps a half-tail if she had more than fifteen minutes between waking up and the start of her daily duties. Nobody cared if her hair fell in her eyes, just as long as they stayed healthy. She'd forgotten what it was like to have those things matter.

By some miracle, there had been a lab coat and some hair pins in her things. She'd put the costume of the refined, brilliant, controlled doctor over her real clothes. So far, she was passing.

With everyone at dinner, she could pretend the hospital was all hers again. The quiet settled around her like a cloud, the soft beep-beep of monitors somehow enhancing rather than diminishing. She'd turned off all the lights to save energy, except for the ones around four beds at the end.

She looked at the little occupants and sighed.

Four of the colony children hadn't come completely out of cold sleep, but sunk instead into one of the shallow comas that were such a feature of end-stage Syndrome. The illness was roughly degenerative by age, and they were all over the age of seven, which translated to living on borrowed time.

Miguel had spent a lot of time reassuring the worried parents, all but promising that they would be out soon. He had quietly instructed Julia to key their gear channels and his own into her speed-dial, however--an instruction she hadn't needed, and had resented mightily.

She went from bed to bed with her diaglove, checking vitals and recording stats. Mona looked the best, comparatively speaking. Of course, at seven years and two months, she was the youngest of the four.

Lynnie, their old woman at nine years and three months, looked the worst.

Since there was nobody to see, Julia brushed the little girl's dark hair out of her eyes. Her own tanned fingers looked dark as coal next to the dead pale of Lynnie's skin, and it felt too cool under her fingers. If not for the steady beep of the heart monitor, Julia would have checked her pulse.

Instead, she picked up the holo that sat next to Lynnie's bed. It showed a fuzzy-headed baby, wearing the slightly dazed look of every baby in every image recording since time began, sitting on the lap of a dark-haired boy. Lynnie and her older brother. He held her steady with both hands, grinning so hugely at the camera that Julia could see the gap where his two front teeth had fallen out.

She sighed and set it down, looking at Lynnie. Nine years hadn't done much for the little girl. She looked as if she'd had more weight when the holo was taken than she did right now. And her big brother's protectiveness might have kept her from falling to the floor on that long-ago day, but it hadn't saved her from the Syndrome.

Resting her hand on Lynnie's forehead, Julia wondered if even the Terrians could save her.

"Any better?"

Julia jolted, then pressed a hand to her thudding heart. "Miguel?"

The senior doctor came into the puddle of light. "Did I frighten you?"

"Startled," she corrected, lifting her datapad and generating a graph of Lynnie's levels. "She's a little bit better," she said, handing it over.

"Very small improvement," he said, studying it.

"But improvement," she returned.

"The others?"

Julia glanced around. "I estimate Mona will be out within the hour, and Suchiko and Brendon perhaps before midnight."

He checked the children's levels thoroughly before concurring, and she had to bite back a sigh. She'd forgotten what it was like to be the most junior member of a medical team. She'd ruled supreme over the medtent for two years, and now had to readjust to having other doctors around.

He ejected Mona's datachip from his pad and dropped it into the box on the end of the bed. Then he turned to Julia and beckoned her away from the beds, toward the offices. She followed, very afraid she knew what this was about.

He stopped at her desk and turned with a benevolent smile. "I've been meaning to talk to you all day. I want to commend you on your discretion."

"Thank you," she said, wondering if she could just flee.

The lines around his eyes crinkled benevolently. "We had some good times, didn't we?"

"Yes," she said faintly. "We did." She tried to emphasize the past tense.

Apparently, she hadn't emphasized it enough, because he continued reminiscing. "Do you remember the dinner we had? In that restaurant in the inner ring?"

"Very good lobster," she said at random, wondering desperately if she could just hide under her desk until he was done.

"And the weekend we spent in your unit with wine and cheese?"

"Yes." She actually didn't remember that weekend, but she had the feeling that if she'd said so, he wouldn't have heard it. Miguel Vasquez rarely heard anything he didn't want to hear.

He smiled warmly at her. "You're a wonderful woman, Julia. Very beautiful, very intelligent." His smile turned regretful. "But I really am committed to working things out with Rita."

"Of course," she said, praying that would be it.

"Now, we're going to be working very closely for the next few months, if not more. I just wanted to make quite sure that you understood the current status of our relationship."

"It's going to be completely professional," she said swiftly. "Completely."

"I'm so glad you understand." He put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked at it incredulously. "I truly do regret that you were hurt, my dear. I don't pretend that if things had been different, I--well. We probably shouldn't talk about that."

"No, no." She stepped back. She should tell him about Alonzo right now, so he wouldn't get any ideas. "There's something I should--"

"Hey, Jules!"

She spun. "Alonzo?"

He paused just inside the door. "Sorry--am I interrupting something?"

"No, of course not," Miguel said, rather heartily. "A professional discussion."

"We're done now," Julia said firmly.

"Good, great. Listen, have you eaten?"

Her stomach growled, and she put her hand over it in surprise. "Oh--well, actually not."

"Jeez. I thought you were a doctor." He shook his head at Miguel. "She's got all these initials after her name and she doesn't know how to take care of herself." He sat on the edge of her desk and took her hands in his. "Well, here's the plan. We're putting some food in you, then I'll stuff Morgan in a closet and put on some real music. And _then_ we're dancing the night away. What do you say? Tempted?"

She couldn't help smiling, even as she wanted to drag Alonzo out of the hospital before he said one thing more. "Yes, but--" She looked over her shoulder. "I'm the physician on duty in here. I can't just--"

"You've been in here all evening! Dr. Vasquez'll take over, won't you?" He turned to Miguel. "You don't mind. You've eaten and everything."

"I'd be happy," Miguel said stiffly.

"See? He'd love to. He's dying to. C'mon."

Following Alonzo out the door, she paused to glance over her shoulder. Miguel still stood at her desk, a stunned look on his face. Her own face went hot, and she hurried out.

* * *

Alonzo felt like he'd missed something in there. It sure hadn't looked like a _professional_ discussion, not with Vasquez's hand on Julia's shoulder like that. Maybe the old guy had a case on her. Alonzo could understand that. Julia would tell him if it was important, so in the meantime he wasn't going to worry.

She already looked better with some food in her. He leaned over and stole another pin.

"Alonzo!" she yelped as her whole hairstyle slid to one side. "Stop that."

"Nuh-uh," he said, stuffing the hairpins in his pocket. "I hate your hair up."

"It's my hair." She tried to bat his hand away, but he got the last couple of pins and it all fell around her shoulders. She made an exasperated noise.

Across the table, Sheila shook her head. "You can't take him anywhere. You remember that one bar, 'Lonzo?"

"There were a lot of bars," he said, peeling a piece of greenfruit. "Which one, exactly?"

"There was a singer there. Name of Marla?"

"Right. Big, uh, personality."

Julia looked at him sideways. "You're a great connoisseur of . . . personality."

He grinned at her. "But I still like yours the best."

"Man, I feel for you," Jovay said to Alonzo. "Two _years_ in real time."

Sheila peered at Alonzo. "Looks like it was rough," she commented. "You got a dent in that pretty face, don't you?"

"Huh?"

She touched her nose.

Alonzo laughed, fingering the bump on the bridge of his once-straight nose. "Oh, yeah . . . that. That's a story."

Julia muttered, "A_lon_zo--"

"So what was it?" Jovay wanted to know. "Wild animal? Penal colonist? Fall off a cliff?"

Alonzo shook his head at each option. "Baseball in the face."

"No VR ever did that," Sheila objected.

"Not a VR. We played real baseball." Alonzo grinned. "_Real_ baseball, real ball, real bats . . ."

"Damn," Jovay said in awe. On the stations, even the top levels didn't have room for stadiums. "But how'd that break your nose?"

He looked at Julia.

She sighed deeply. "Go ahead." She dug into her salad.

Alonzo settled into the story, propping his elbows on the table. He loved this story, even though it drove Julia crazy. "We got the idea of ball games over our first winter. Because, _damn_, it was boring holed up there. So we made balls and bats, y'know, just sort of improvising. Well, you saw our numbers, man, we couldn't have two full teams. We had to go with one outfielder, and the robot was the umpire. Come spring and we find out, Jules here has never played. Not even in VR."

They all looked at Julia, who looked down at her plate. "I had other priorities as a child," she mumbled defensively.

He put his arm around her shoulders, cuddling her into his side for a moment. "So, see, we had to teach her. And the thing about Jules here is, she's like super genius brain woman, she gets everything first time around. Except baseball. She could _not_ hit that dumb ball."

"I did a couple of times," she defended herself.

"Sure you did, and it went boink-boink-boink--" With his hands, he demonstrated a baseball bouncing no more a few feet away from him. She made a face at him. He grinned and turned back to his friends. "So finally Danz just loses all patience and yells, 'C'_mon_ ya weenie, put some muscle in it!' And that pissed her off real good."

"He always says that was his intention," Julia said dryly. "Actually, he was just being a jerk."

"And I pitch, and she swings and _crack_ and _phwoosh_ and _wham_ and I'm lying on the ground spouting blood like a shankin' fountain."

"I didn't mean to," she said as his friends roared with laughter.

"I know, baby, I know. If you'd meant to, you'd've hit it at him."

"So you played a lot of ball?" Jovay asked.

"Actually--" Alonzo had to stop and think. "We got in--what, Jules, two games? Before--"

"Maybe three . . . but then . . ." The laughter leached out of Julia's face like water draining. "We started getting sick. Eben died and then we had to leave Devon--nobody really felt like playing baseball after that."

"Oh, yeah," Sheila said sympathetically. "Yeah, I can see."

Looking at her, Alonzo got a shock. Sheila could feel bad for them, but she hadn't known Eben--funny Eben who played practical jokes and flirted even-handedly with every guy in camp from Yale to Uly, and who pitched fastballs like rockets. And Sheila would never, _could_ never, understand the helpless horror of the six weeks Devon had been in cryo, or the miracle of getting her back again. She couldn't understand the strangeness of their first days, or the bitter day-by-day survival of winter, or the way the camp felt at night, when they all huddled around the same fire, listening to the familiar rise and fall of each others' voices and knowing that for one more night, the darkness wouldn't eat them alive.

For a moment, one of his best friends looked like a stranger.

"We had a few games here," he said quickly, to break the spell. "Not a lot, but some--hey, you know, Jules, we can actually play a real game now! We've got more than enough people--"

"Not until it warms up," she said. "Moon Cross is only a few weeks away."

"Moon Cross?" Sheila questioned.

Again that jolt. Alonzo was so used to Moon Cross meaning the start of winter, cold, the earth and the Terrians settling in to sleep, that he'd forgotten that they were just two strange words to Sheila. "Winter," he said. "No ball games, it's too cold. But when it warms up, we can have a lot of teams. It could be like a league. We'd have a tournament, and--"

"Whoa there, rocket boy," Jovay laughed. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"What?"

"When it warms up, you won't be here."

"Jovay!" Sheila hissed, and tilted her head at Julia.

Feeling his neck creak, Alonzo looked around at her. She sat, moving the last piece of leafy green around her plate. Every so often, the fork scratched against the unglazed pottery.

"Oh man," Jovay said. "Oh--wow. Man. Sorry. Didn't you know? Didn't he tell you? Lonz, didn't you--"

"He told me," she said. "I knew."

It was one of the unwritten codes of sleepjumping. Don't let 'em fall for you. Don't let it get serious. Don't let them believe it's going to be forever, because forever's eaten up by one jump. Other sleepjumpers knew better, but they all had to take care with lovers who lived in real time.

Sheila and Jovay looked at him accusingly. How could he explain to them how it had been? He _had _followed the code and told her, way back, way before their first winter. But back then, his departure had been a nebulous, hazy event far in the future. Now it was here, and he'd broken the code anyway.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Julia put down her knife and fork with the same precision as she would a live lascalpel. There was still a little food left on her plate. He would have bothered her into eating it in other circumstances, but the atmosphere felt oddly delicate--like a crystal cobweb. He didn't want to shatter it.

Her voice fell into the air like pebbles dropping into a pond. "You promised me a dance." Soft and quiet, and very, very careful.

"I did, didn't I?" He reached down and took her hand, feeling the familiar narrow-boned construction of it as if it were the first time he'd ever touched her. "Well. Come on then."

He danced with her to one of Morgan's old-fashioned slow tunes, something with dreamy piano under slow lyrics asking wistfully not to be forgotten.

Her body moved soft against his, totally familiar. _Julia_, he thought helplessly. She'd never asked him for anything, and he'd ended up giving more than he ever had to anyone else. With an odd sideways jolt of his heart, he realized he'd been with her about twenty times longer than he'd ever been with anyone.

But he would leave. It was what he did. Sleepjumpers left, and he was a sleepjumper, and just like he'd done before, he would leave.


	5. Getting To Know You

Getting to Know You

The advancers had gotten used to rising before dawn. The sun was barely nosing over the edge of the horizon when John finished his shower. Rubbing his hair dry, he looked up and down the long shower building for his daughter. Instead, he saw only her shoes, sitting outside the stall she'd picked. He frowned. "True!"

"Almost done!"

"Angel, over a thousand people still have to use these showers, and they're not gonna thank you for using up all their hot water."

"Not do-one!" True caroled.

Muffled laughter drifted from other stalls, and he groaned. Oh, he was gonna get ragged on today. "Five minutes," he shouted through the door. "I told you five minutes!"

"I haven't washed my hair yet!"

"The hell with your hair! Get out of the damn shower! People are waiting!" Not exactly a lie; Ketchum and his older girl had drifted into the building while he was yelling, and stood staring wide-eyed at him.

"I'm not done!"

He nodded at the pair and resumed yelling. "You have thirty seconds to get done! Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight--"

She started singing, very loudly and very off-key. He kept counting, hit zero, and waited for the water to turn off. It didn't.

John shook his head. She'd asked for it. He went outside and found the pipes that fed into the water heater. He traced the one that led back to his daughter's shower, found a valve, and gave it a good sharp twist.

A blood-curdling scream cut the morning air.

Unperturbed, he strolled back into the building. "I told you thirty seconds, True-girl," he pointed out.

"It's freezing!" she wailed. From the other stalls, he could hear downright hilarity now.

"Guess you'd better finish up then, huh?" He looked around. The Ketchums were all but edging away. He nodded. "Morning."

"Morning," the father said, too polite not to.

"You look about ready to report me," John observed.

Ketchum looked apprehensive. "Well--don't you think you're being a little hard on her?"

"Everyone says that," he complained, "but nobody ever says how hard she is on me." He looked at Ketchum's girl. "Molly, right? How old are you?"

"Twelve," Molly said softly.

"Twelve," John echoed. He looked back up at her dad. "Mine's almost thirteen. Your turn's coming." He gestured down the building. "Pick a stall, any stall. They've all got hot water; I just messed with hers."

The curtain on the stall swished open. True, her hair dripping down the back of her shirt, stormed past them. John paused just long enough to re-open the hot-water valve before strolling after her. Her rebellious mutters drifted back to him, and he rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm goin' to Daddy Hell."

* * *

To Rob's astonishment, Danziger seemed to be on perfectly good terms with his daughter at breakfast. He had expected icy fury, maybe more shouting. He himself had never bellowed at Molly or Angie like that, and couldn't imagine doing so anytime in the future.

But True bubbled over with chatter, and the advancer Rob sat next to seemed sublimely unconcerned. "That's just Danziger," Bess Martin told him. "He fights with all his favorite girls. You should see him get into it with Devon. It's pretty funny."

Darla said delicately, "Are they really--ah--"

Bess glanced at Molly and Angie, all ears, and apparently opted for the less explicit answer. "Together? Mmmhm. Took 'em a year to figure it out, but they're in it now." She crossed her arms over her belly. "Listen, there's a pool going on them if you want in."

Rob blinked. "A pool? You mean betting?"

"I'm down for Danziger popping the question sometime this winter."

"Ludicrous," her husband proclaimed, waving a dripping slice of fruit. "Insanity. Spring at least."

Bess rolled her eyes but otherwise ignored it. "Standard bet's a full day's work. You in?"

"No," Darla said. She cut her eyes at Rob--_do you hear that?_

Embarrassed for her rudeness, he smiled at them. "Not right now."

They weren't stupid. Bess smiled back and said, "Well, I'm running the book," but they made excuses and left within moments.

Darla said, "Finally! Can you believe that? How is it their business?"

He thought about pointing out that she'd started it, asking about Devon's private life. He decided against it. "It's not as if they have holo sets," he told her. "They've got to do something, I suppose."

She probably would have argued the point with him, but just then, Angie reached for a piece of Pacifica apple and Darla's attention was diverted.

It seemed friendly to him. Close--all these advancers were very close. Nothing like the anonymity of their block on the stations, where they'd lived next door to one couple for five years without knowing their names. He thought of old books he'd read that talked about small-town life on Earth, where everyone knew everyone else, and their business as well. New Pacifica, in-town population one thousand, two hundred and sixty-seven. Out-town population, zippo. Nada.

This place, so very, very small, and yet so unthinkably huge at the same time. Paradoxical; dizzy-making. He looked at Molly and saw her staring out the window at the impossibly blue sky.

She caught him looking and smiled, the expression briefly lighting up her face. Rob couldn't help but smile back. His self-contained little girl, curled up like a shrimp in a shell. She'd never looked like this on the stations.

* * *

By the time they started the tours, True could already tell she wasn't going to like any of the kids that had come in the colony ship. So far, they'd whined about the food, complained about their beds, and made fun of the dorms. If her dad hadn't been right there, True would have kicked every last one of them in the shins.

"We call this Downtown," her dad told the group as they stood on the porch. "Half of it's offices and storage. Other half--here where we've been eating--we call this the gathering space."

"Gathering space," one boy sneered. "What is this, the twentieth century? Are we all hippies now?"

It was, almost word-for-word, what her dad had said when Devon had coined the term for the big multi-purpose room. But it stung, coming from somebody who hadn't so much as picked up a hammer to help build it. True glared.

Her dad gritted his teeth, but managed to make his voice mild, as if he hadn't heard. "You kids'll meet there tomorrow for school, and whenever Devon calls a meeting, we'll meet in there. Which we will. The woman's crazy for meetings."

"What else is there to do here?" the same boy muttered.

The boy's mother said, "Ryan." Her tone was warning, but it was a lot milder and a lot less effective than anything her dad would have said if she'd been that rude to someone's face.

There were more snotty comments, not all of them from Ryan, when they walked out of the center of town to see the garage, the weaving shed, the smokehouse, and the farm. True's ire weakened a little when she got to show off the poultry she'd been raising, Earth chickens and the larger G889 equivalent. True had named them tommy-birds because her dad had said they reminded him of a boss he'd once had, fat and placid and dumb enough to wander off a cliff without noticing.

Some people cooed, though they stayed well back from the beaks, which could punch through tin if the tommy-birds ever did get annoyed. Then a lady stepped in a goat plop and about had a fit.

"Christ, it's just sh--poop," her dad said, obviously fighting for patience. True slid her gaze toward him, wondering if he was annoyed enough that he'd pretend not to notice if she did kick some of the kids in the shins. He gave her a warning look. She sighed and behaved herself.

"It's probably teeming with bacteria," the lady said.

"Yeah, well, get used to it. This ain't the stations."

The lady left to change shoes, and probably to burn the poopy ones. True wondered what would happen the first time she got assigned to spread fertilizer on the vegetable patch, and grinned wickedly.

They set off for the coast. True caught up with her dad, and he tucked her under his arm. "Hang in there," he muttered. "Almost done."

"They're complaining about everything," she groused.

"Their problem. Where else are they gonna go?"

"Biodome in winter," she suggested.

"Tents in a rainstorm."

"The desert, anytime." True could feel the tension ease out of his arm where it rested on her shoulders, and she grinned up at him. "Do you think any of them will go back? To the stations, I mean."

He shrugged. "They signed on for lifetime occupancy, angel."

"Yeah, but they thought it was gonna be exactly like back there."

"It's not what we were expecting either," he reminded her. "Are you gonna go back?"

"Hell no," she said forcefully. "Even if Mr. Braxton wants us to," she added, just in case he was thinking about it. "We're never leaving, ever, right?"

He gave her a noogie, and she squealed. "You got it, angel. The Danzigers are rooted. Couldn't blast us out with dynamite."

Reassured, she glanced over her shoulder to check on their group. "Da-ad," she sighed. "We're losing them."

He stopped and turned, waiting for the group of straggling colonists to catch up.

"Can't we--stop and rest a moment?" one mother wheezed.

"We'll get to Singh Point in under five minutes," True's dad said. "You can rest there."

"Mr. Danziger, Angie's getting pretty worn out," said a dad, hefting the little girl he carried. She was one of the few Syndrome kids who'd come along on the tour, pale as paper and thin as a stick. She rested her head on her dad's shoulder.

True's dad sighed. "Couple minutes," he said. "Not too long."

Everyone who hadn't flopped to the ground did so, catching their breath. Man, True thought, watching them pant and wipe away sweat. They'd'a totally died if they'd had to trek across the continent. She wondered how Devon's tour group was doing.

"I told you it would be too strenuous," Angie's mom fussed. "I told you. Most of your friends stayed behind. Rob, I'll take her back to the hospital."

"No-o-o!" Angie wailed. "Mom, let me see the for-real ocean, please?"

"I've got her, Darla," the dad said. "She's okay."

"I don't like it. Maybe we should all go back." She turned to her other daughter, sitting quietly in the grass and staring out at the bulge of the point. "Molly, you feel tired, don't you? You do. How about we go back? You can see all this some other time."

"This is the last part, Darla," her husband said. "C'mon, baby, we'll just finish up."

"But Molly--"

"I'm not tired, Mom," Molly said. "I want to see the ocean too."

True turned to look at her thoughtfully.

"Rest's over," True's dad said. "Let's go."

Amid groans and complaints, everyone got to their feet, brushing grass off their butts. Someone found a bug on their leg and screamed. True rolled her eyes.

Even though they tried to slow down to the group's pace, True and her dad still reached the point before anybody else. "Are we going down to the beach?" she asked hopefully.

He nudged his sunshades higher up on his nose. "That was the plan, but I don't think anyone will want to."

"Too bad for them," she said. "They could've seen some dead fish."

He laughed out loud. "Yeah, they would've loved that."

The first few colonists caught up with them at that point. "Finally, we can--" The man stopped mid-moan and stared, mesmerized by his first glimpse of the sea.

The others straggled up, panting, complaining, and falling silent as they saw the sea. True didn't blame them. She'd stood here--right here--for close to an hour the very first time she'd seen it.

The sea stretched out, filling the horizon in every direction with deep, wrinkled grey-blue. At the base of the cliff, far, far below, the waves smashed themselves on the rocks, sending up explosions of spray and foam. It boiled like a live thing, wilder and more powerful than anything humankind could control.

True, looking at their awed faces, decided that they might not be so bad.

Then Ryan said, "Big deal. It's a bunch of water." He yawned hugely and stretched out on the grass. "Wake me up when something interesting happens."

That was it. True stepped on him.

He yelped, jackknifing to a sitting position. "What was that for?"

She turned big, innocent eyes on him. "Sorry. Didn't see you."

"Bullshit," he said rudely.

"Is that what you're full of?"

His hands balled into fists. "You little brat, how'd you like to get a--"

She stood her ground. "Just you try it--"

Parental scolds came simultaneously.

"Ryan!"

"True!"

"We didn't do anything," they said in perfect concert, then broke off, glaring at each other.

True's dad said, "Fine, keep it that way." He started pointing out the boats and the cutting tables on the beach far below. Some of the colonists liked the idea of sailing, but nobody looked happy to hear about fish duty.

Molly and Angie's mom asked where the elevator was, and looked like she might have a heart attack on the spot when True's dad showed her the stairs. She looked even less happy when Angie said in an obviously encouraging tone, "Mommy, it's just like the machine you had to get rid of. Your butt is going to look great."

After ten or fifteen minutes, everyone wanted to go back, and they headed off down the point with a lot more energy than they'd climbed up with. True shook her head. Boy, this looked great. Devon would say to give them a chance, but True wasn't sure she wanted to waste the time.

She turned around and found one person still on the point. Actually, on the very edge, sitting with her legs dangling into empty space, looking out at the sea like it was the answer to every question she'd ever asked.

"You know," True said, standing at her back, "you could fall off, sitting on the edge like that. It's a really long way down."

Molly twisted around to look up at her. "Have you ever fallen off?"

True blinked. Even Uly didn't know how often she sat on the edge just like that, against her dad's express, fish-and-filter-duty-for-a-month orders. "I'm still here, aren't I?" she said, wondering if it had been a lucky guess.

"Oh my God! Molly!" Her mom rushed up and grabbed her arm. "Get away from there, do you have any idea how dangerous, oh my God--" She turned on True. "And you, little girl, does your father know you're encouraging other children to put themselves in danger?"

True blinked, taken completely aback. "What?"

"She didn't encourage me to do anything, Mom," Molly said, getting carefully to her feet. "I'm fine."

"Don't get away from me, Molly. I mean it. This place is dangerous."

True watched them go, wondering if getting to know Molly would be worth being around her mom.

* * *

Alonzo finished his tour and saw his group of colonists off with a glad heart. Seemed like they'd spent more time dumping on what the advancers had built here than they'd spent looking at it. So there were open fields of indigenous plants instead of greenhouses, he thought grouchily. So the bathrooms were outside. So all the blankets and curtains had been woven by hand instead of coming packaged in plastic. So what? Wasn't it better than seeing their kids die? Geez.

He flipped up a section of the bar and went behind it, rooting in the shelves for a clean mug. Most of them were still in the kitchens, getting washed. He should go in there and help, he thought without enthusiasm. The colonists should go in there and help, except they'd probably break every other mug.

His quest successful, he filled his mug with some of the tart, just-going-alcoholic cider they'd made in the summer. Propping his elbows on the bar, he wondered if they'd ever gather in a group again in one of the booths, the big empty room echoing with their laughter.

He sighed and took another drink.

The base of his neck prickled, and he looked up to see someone standing on the other side of the bar, staring at him. After a moment, he identified her. It was the lady doctor Vasquez.

"Uh--" he said. "Can I help you? Are you lost?"

"What's your name?" she asked, hugging her elbows. She looked sort of like his _Tía_ Stella, but thinner, like she'd tried to whittle down her natural roundness and had only half-succeeded. And his auntie never would have worn her hair all twisted back and pinned down like that, or gone out in public without a speck of jewelry on her person.

"Alonzo Solace," he said, wondering if she was coming on to him. "You're--uh--Dr. Rita, aren't you?"

"Yes," she said, but didn't elaborate. She just kept staring with familiar brown eyes.

"Well . . . pleased to meet you. Uh. Did you need something?"

She came out of her apparent trance with a little jolt. "No," she said. "No, nothing." She turned and left, and it was only when the door shut behind her that Alonzo realized he'd spoken Spanish for the first time since he'd left home. Not only that, she'd answered in the same language--the language that had been outlawed on the stations, along with everything else that wasn't English, for the past fifty years.

He vaulted over the bar and rushed to the door, wrenching it open to stare out into the square. But she'd already disappeared.


	6. Momma Said There'd Be Days Like This

Momma Said There'd Be Days Like This

Ryan's mom gave him hell, of course. She'd been giving him hell on a more or less daily basis for the past two years, so he was able to tune it out. He knew it all anyway--behave yourself blah blah you don't get a second chance to make a first blah blah blah I just don't know what I'm going to blabbity blah blah.

He looked at the garage as they passed. It was standing open, and he could see a really cool little one-seater inside. On that thing, he could go rocketing away across those endless fields. Zoom, zip! All by himself. All he had to do was steal it. Those stupid advancers probably didn't even have it voice-locked. He shot his mom a crafty look and sidled crabwise away from her.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Nowhere," he said automatically.

"You're coming to the hospital, aren't you?"

"What? No."

"Yes, you are." She caught his wrist, just like he was six.

He wrenched it out of her grip. "I've got dirt and grass all over me," he said. "They'll never let me in."

"They have sterilizers," she said. "Come along, Ryan. We're going to see your sister."

Feet dragging, head drooping, he followed. If he got into it with her now, they'd be screaming until sunset, and he'd _still_ have to visit the stupid hospital.

A nurse made him wash his face and hands even though he'd gone through the sterilizer, so by the time he approached his sister's bed, his mom had been there for ten minutes already. She gave him a look like it was his fault he was late. "Say hello to your sister, Ryan," she ordered.

He looked down at the wasted figure. She was paler than the sheets, not that he could see a whole lot of her with all the hookups for monitors. They looked to him, as they always did, like tentacles sucking the life out of his sister. "Hey, Lynnie," he muttered.

Her eyelids just barely fluttered.

His mom saw it, of course. She never missed anything when it came to Lynnie. "Tell her what you did today."

"Walked around," he said.

"More than that."

He turned on her. "What's the point? She's in a stinkin' coma."

"She can hear us," his mom said stubbornly. "Tell her about this planet. Tell her about the sky, and the sun, and the ocean."

"What is with everybody and that dumb ocean? It's just a bunch of water." He'd looked at it and thought of a boat that he could use to sail away beyond the horizon and leave everything behind.

"Tell her about the grass, then." She looked down at her daughter. "There's real grass, honey. It's so pretty . . . and the forest . . . all the trees . . ." She turned on Ryan suddenly. "_Tell_ her."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, staring out the window above his sister's head. The beeps of her heart monitor drilled into his head like Chinese Water Torture.

"Ryan," his mother said warningly.

He said, "You're not missing much, Big L. This place sucks." He spun around and stalked away.

His mother yelled, "Ryan! Ryan Anthony McNab! You come back here!"

He kept going, blocking his ears, speeding up his pace until he was practically running, because he'd never be able to live it down if he started bawling like a damn baby right there in the middle of the hospital.

* * *

John had a few choice words for Devon on the subject of ungrateful colonists, but when she dropped into the bench next to him, he swallowed them. She looked like she'd been through the wars.

"Told ya you shouldn't've given out your gear channel," he said instead.

"I only gave it out to people who really needed to know," she muttered.

"And they gave it out to everyone." He slipped a hand under her hair and rubbed the back of her neck, which felt like one big knot under his fingers. "Congratulations, Adair, you got yourself a bouncing baby town."

She dropped her head forward. "As long as we don't get colic, I think we'll make it through the first few weeks. Don't stop that or I'll break all your fingers."

"Good thing for you threats turn me on," he said, continuing his massage. The knots were starting to unravel, but slowly. "So how many of those calls were from parents wanting to crucify you for putting their darlings on work detail?"

Her mouth slid into a pout. "Most of them."

"And I was . . ." When she clammed up, he leaned closer and crooned in her ear, "C'mon, gimme those three little words every guy wants to hear."

"You were right," she grumbled.

"Can I get a recording of that?"

She scowled at him. "All right, it's not a very popular idea, but I stand behind it. They're part of this community and they need to contribute. Besides, it's the most efficient method of making sure they're being looked after. For heaven's sake, it's not as if I asked them put their sick children to work--just the healthy ones."

"Get used to it, Madam Governor," he advised. "Speaking from experience, it's not gonna be your last unpopular policy."

She widened her eyes in overdone surprise. "What? You mean some of these people are going to argue with every little thing I say? Gosh, I wonder what that's like?"

"Think of me as boot camp."

"I think you're a lot of things," she said. "Boots enter into most of them." He snickered, and she grinned at him. "How was your tour group?"

He thought. "I didn't kill anyone," he offered. "True only maimed one person."

"Oh," she moaned.

"The kid deserved it. He was running his mouth the entire time. I almost sewed his lips shut when we were in Bess's shed."

"Who was it?"

"Ryan something."

"Ryan McNab," she said, relaxing. "In that case, he probably did deserve it."

"Wow," John said. "Kid must be a pill and a half."

"He's--um--a challenge."

"Right. Help me out here; are we talking after-school detention challenge, or juvie court challenge?"

"Let me put it this way," she said. "Given a few more years on the stations, his record might have rivaled mine."

When it came to Devon's teenage exploits, the phrase _as long as your arm_ wasn't so much metaphorical as literal. It made John's own trouble-making days look like a choirboy's adventures. He took his hand off her neck. "You're kidding."

Devon tipped her head back in a yawn and said at the end of it, "For his mom's sake, I wish I was. You name it, he's done it. Shoplifting, possession, destruction of property, drinking, hacking, and that's just since he turned fifteen." Belatedly, she realized her massage had ceased. "Hey, don't stop."

"Quit whining and explain to me why you're letting a kid with that kind of rap sheet near my garage."

Her brows snapped together. "What am I supposed to do, chain him out on the cliffs? This place is about second chances, John. Everyone deserves one."

"Sounds to me like he used his up, along with his third, fourth, and tenth chances."

"Then we'll give him an eleventh," she snapped. "As many as it takes."

"Yeah, what if he takes himself off a cliff in the process?"

"These people came here for their children, John. A lot of them came for both their children. This is a place to start over."

He raked his fingers through his hair. "Things are hard enough already, and there's going to be a bunch of fucked-up little punks running around, creating havoc?"

"The term is emotionally disturbed," Devon said dryly. "And it's not as if we can do anything to change it."

"No, it's not, is it?" But he still would have appreciated some advance notice.

She looked down at her knees, then back at him. "I should've told you before." There was an apology in the words, unspoken.

That was enough to make the ire subside. He thought about letting it stand at that, but found himself saying, "You're telling me now. That's something."

She smiled a little. "Ryan's the most extreme example, I'll admit. But the Syndrome siblings don't have it easy. They're confused, they're angry, they feel helpless--even more so than their parents--and they're trying to cope as best they can. Raising hell is a very healthy reaction to their situation."

"Now you sound like one of the shrinks."

"I should; I've spent enough time with them."

He considered the situation and finally shrugged. So, another bump in the road. Like it had been so smooth before. "I won't coddle them," he warned. "They push me, I'll push back."

"I'm depending on it," she said.

They sat for a few minutes, watching people straggle into the gathering space for lunch. He turned his head to study her. She had a little more color to her now, but she still didn't look a hundred percent. "Got your pills on you?"

She patted one pocket. "Right here." Her voice was bright, as if she were trying to lighten the mood between them.

He took her hand and pulled her up from the bench. "Brace yourself, gorgeous, I'm taking you to lunch at the ritziest joint in town."

"Oh, boy," she said in a sultry voice. "And me without my mink."

Predictably, she was mobbed almost as soon as she stepped foot into the gathering space. John glared until most of them cleared out, and it was a measure of how tired she was that she didn't bother telling him off for it. When they were finally left to themselves, he looked around. "Y'know, I was picturing this place full of kids rollin' around in suits and chairs. Most of this crowd, you'd never be able to tell."

She crossed her arms. "I know. The holos kept showing kids that were more like robots than--"

"Whoa, hey! I'm on your side here, lady."

"Sorry. Old reflex." She smiled at him and continued in a less strident tone. "The Syndrome's degenerative. They don't need the suit until sometime in the second-to-last year. They don't need the chair until a year to six months before--ah--before the end."

John scanned the tables and found Uly, chattering away to a crew of his immuno-suited buddies. Some were in chairs. Suddenly, the accouterments didn't seem like funny clothes or machinery to him. They looked like countdowns.

_The end, _she'd said, so determinedly casual. The only end to the Syndrome--at least, on the stations.

It had just been the first couple of days that Uly had been suited and chaired. Then he'd been taken by the Terrians and returned, made new. It was easy to forget. Easier to underestimate.

"How long was Uly in the chair?" he asked.

"Three months." She tried to smile, and it was a piss-poor attempt. "He was never even supposed to get the suit. We were scheduled to leave before that. But red tape--you know."

He knew. His contract had been pushed back and back, forcing him to take last-minute jobs with crappy pay to make ends meet. Those had been thin times for himself and True, but he'd never given a thought to how Devon must have taken each delay, watching her kid get more and more frail as his body broke down.

Twelve to six months, minus three . . .

"You really almost lost him, didn't you?" he said quietly, stroking one hand down her back.

For a moment, he thought she wasn't going to answer, then she sighed. "I really almost did."

They were silent through the line. She put her hand in his, and he held it, thinking about narrow escapes.

* * *

Uly found most of his friends sitting at a table near the front. Their parents had all gone to get them food. "Hi, guys," he said, sitting down.

They broke off talking to look at him.

"Whuh?" he demanded with a mouthful of food.

"Nothing," Max said, in a way that really meant _something._

"What?" he said again.

"What's it like being healthy?" Angie asked.

Max said, "_Ang_ie!"

"It's good," Uly said. "It's great. I can do anything now."

"Like what?" Hari Bakshi demanded.

Uly's mind went blank as he tried to remember what he couldn't used to do. He could barely remember what it was like to have the Syndrome. It had all receded in his brain. "I went fishing the other day," he said. "In a boat. On the ocean."

"I saw the ocean today," Angie said. "What else?"

"I climb trees all the time. Like the one in the square? I climb that a lot."

Impressed looks bounced around the table.

Uly warmed to his subject. "I can work. My mom always says that. She says, 'You're perfectly healthy and you can help out." He made a face. "But that's okay, that's sort of fun sometimes actually. And I can talk to--" Uly broke off. His mom wanted to wait to tell everyone about the Terrian healing, and if he started talking about the Terrians parts of himself, well, his friends would never let up until they figured it out.

Max looked at him curiously. "Talk to who?"

"Everybody," Uly said, unable to come up with a good lie.

"We can talk to everybody now," Marie O'Connor pointed out.

"Not if they have, like, a cold or something," Uly said. He rushed on. "And swimming, I can swim. I swam in the summer. All the time. Like every day."

This, of course, distracted everyone right away. "Really?" Angie asked, bright-eyed. "Where?"

"The ocean," he said. "There's these pools, see--"

"You can't," Max said. "The ocean is really dirty. I read a book. It has this nasty stuff in it that'll kill anybody even if they're healthy--"

"That's on Earth," Uly said when he figured it out. "You're not on Earth anymore. Nobody's ever dumped chemicals and things in these oceans." And they never would, he thought fiercely.

Max's jaw jutted. "My dad wouldn't like it if I swam in the ocean. I bet it'd make me sick."

"Everything makes us sick," Angie said.

Everyone laughed at that, but Marie started coughing mid-giggle. Over by the food line, Uly said her dad's head turn, but she stopped coughing just as he stepped out of line.

He came over anyway, hovering over her. "Honey? How are you?"

"I'm okay, Dad."

"Here--I've got your inhaler--"

"I don't need it."

"Just in case."

She sighed and submitted. Her dad listened to her breathe for a moment before he went away satisfied. He had to get in the back of the line again.

Seeing that reminded Uly that nobody else had eaten yet. He pushed his plate toward his friend. "You guys want something? I can get seconds."

Most of them said they weren't hungry, but Angie reached out for a piece of fruit. "Bet my mom's not going to get me any of this," she said, munching. "She doesn't like indijus stuff."

"What stuff?"

"I don't know, that's what she called it last night. I love this," she added, and took another.

"Uly," Hari said. "How long did it take? Before you got well?"

"Yeah," Marie said. "Did it take a long time? Are we still going to be sick at the end of the winter?"

"No, no," Angie said. "I bet next week," she pointed at Max, "you'll be out of your chair. And you guys'll be out of your suits," she said to Marie and Hari. "And _I'll_ be swimming in the ocean."

"No, you won't," Max said. "It takes longer than that, doesn't it?" he asked Uly.

"Uh," Uly said. "It was--kind of--sudden?"

"What do you mean?"

"Um--I don't know if I can exactly explain." Yes he could, he thought grouchily. He could if only his mom hadn't told him not to. It didn't make sense to him. He wanted to tell them everything, and take them away right now, to the Terrians, so they could get fixed and then he wouldn't be the only one anymore.

Angie's eyes went wide with hope. "Did you just wake up one morning and you were better?"

"Something like that," he mumbled. "Kind of."

He was saved by Max's dad, who came to the table with two plates full of food. "Dad," Max said. "Uly says he swam in the ocean."

"Don't be ridiculous," Max's dad said. "Uly's mom would never allow to do something so dangerous."

Uly stared at him. "She does, though," he said. "She lets me do lots of things now."

Max's dad gave him one of those smiles that meant the grown-up didn't believe you. None of the advancers ever gave him that smile. He hated it.

Angie whispered, "_I _believe you."

"Thanks," he whispered back.

"Can I have more fruit?"

He gave it to her. His appetite was suddenly gone.

More parents came, with food. They fussed and fluttered over their kids, asking them to eat, warning them that they'd go back in the hospital after lunch. His friends ate, not very much by Uly's standards, but their parents spoke happily about their appetites.

Uly sat watching them like True looking at a new species for Julia. He'd known all these kids since he was little. He and Max had been diagnosed at the same time. But they all looked like strangers now--little and skinny and pale. And _young_.

Since when had his friends been so young?

* * *

Devon sent True over to help Uly with clearing up. As they made their way between the tables and then into the kitchen, heads turned as colonists stared at Uly, then quickly returned to what they'd been doing. Kids pointed and whispered to each other or their parents.

"Everybody keeps looking at you," True said to him. "What is _with_ that?"

"Mom says it's because I'm healthy," Uly said. "They're not used to it."

"Doesn't it bug you?"

"No," he claimed, but True could tell he was lying a little.

At the serving table, they helped Cameron pack fruit back into crates and scoop chowder into a container so they could put it in the cold room before it spoiled. The bearded cook sighed at the amount that was left. "These kids don't hardly have appetites," he told them. "Not like you."

Uly grinned through the half a greenfruit he already had in his mouth.

"And the parents kept asking what I put in this. Sure, yeah, for flavor I used a pinch of arsenic and just a sprinkle of nuclear waste." He rolled his eyes and hoisted the container of chowder. "They got all bent out of shape because I used indigenous ingredients."

As Cameron walked away toward the cold room, Uly said, "Oh, _indigenous_," as if he'd just figured something out.

"What?" True asked him.

"Angie said her mom said not to eat indijus stuff. I didn't know what she meant."

"It means it's from G889."

"I knew that," he said.

"They think things from here are going to poison them or something," True said scornfully. "They're such babies."

"They are not!"

"Are too. I was right yesterday. They're all scared of everything."

"You shut up! They are not!"

Although taken aback by Uly's sudden ferocity, True jumped right in. "You should've seen them this morning," she said. "It was pitiful. They should just go back to the stations, if you ask me."

"Nobody asked you," Uly said, shoving a big platter across the table so hard that it fell off the edge. Leftover bread flew and crumbs scattered in every direction, and when the platter hit the ground, it broke into three jagged pieces.

"Damn it, Uly, now look what you did!"

"So what," he said. "And you're not s'posed to cuss."

"Are you going to tattle?" she mocked. "Are you going to tattle like a little baby?"

"I am not a baby!" he yelled.

"You are too, you and all those kids, you're all--"

"_Enough!"_

Startled out of her rage, True looked up to see her dad looming over them.

"Enough," he said again. "Can it, you two."

They rushed to defend themselves.

"But she said--"

"He broke--"

"She called me--"

"I know," Dad said. "I heard. Most of the town heard. Who broke the plate?"

"Him," True said.

"Me," Uly mumbled at the same time.

"Okay. Pick up the pieces. Don't cut yourself. You two done here?"

True looked up and down the table. "Almost."

"Fine. Uly, finish up. True, come with me. You both need to simmer down. Apart."

Most of the time, True would have protested being hauled away like a little kid, but the fight with Uly had shaken her. They fought a lot, sure, but not like this. He'd been really mad. Usually, she was the one who got mad, and he just sort of played along.

Probably she shouldn't've called his friends babies. But he hadn't even sat with her at lunch.

"Sorry, Dad," she muttered after a minute.

He grunted.

"Where're we going?"

"We're going to meet the ops crew and go see how bad the ship looks."

Struck by a sudden impulse, she announced, "I want to work on the ship with you guys." If she was on the ship, she wouldn't have to be on work detail with those annoying colonist kids.

He looked down at her. "What? Today? That's why I'm taking you."

"No, I mean for regular. Instead of work detail. C'mon, Dad, I'll be a big help. You always say I'm a big help."

They rounded the corner of Downtown and the garage came into view. Most of the ops crew was already there. Mr. Braxton stood by the garage doors, his arms crossed. "We'll talk about it later," her dad said.

Okay, fine. She'd be such an incredible help today that he'd have to let her come work on the ship.

As they walked up, Mr. Braxton said, "Talk to you?"

Her dad swung the garage door open. "Come on in."

True trailed along behind and heard Mr. Braxton say, "They didn't find anything."

"I know," her dad said.

"They scanned us all. Like fucking criminals or something."

Her dad pinched the bridge of his nose. "I explained this. They scanned you looking for a compulsion chip, not criminal tendencies."

"Funny how your top-level twinkie latched right onto the drones, isn't it?"

Her dad's voice came through his teeth. "She is not a twinkie, and she's not latching onto anybody. It was a member of the crew last time, we figured good odds it would be this time."

"Yeah, well, it wasn't, was it?"

True eased back even further. O-kay. So apparently she was not the only one in her family who was in a fight.

On the way out to the landing site, True rode in the back seat of the dune rail, holding on to her dad's big box of equipment, which took up the rest of the space. She hung her head over the side, watching the ground rush by underneath and letting the wind ruffle her hair and howl in her ears. It almost, but not quite, muffled the tense, low-voiced words between her dad and Mr. Braxton. When silence fell in the front seat, it was even worse.

She pulled her head back in and slid down in the seat, digging her chin into her chest. Everything was changing, and it all seemed to be changing for the worse. She wished the colony ship had never landed.

* * *

Lynnie struggled out of the darkness. She hated the comas that came more and more often now, dragging her down into their muddy depths until she was all alone in the dark.

The world came back in pieces--silence giving way to the mechanical beeps and twitters of the medical machines, emptiness replaced with the feel of sheets and sensors against her skin, numbness turning into the feel of the breathing tube in her nose, pushing oxygen down her throat.

It hurt to be conscious, but even that was better than the dark.

"Honestly, Ryan, what were you--"

"Mom, she's waking up."

"Lynnie?"

Her mother's hand closed around hers. Mustering all her energy, Lynnie tried to squeeze her hand.

"Her fingers twitched. Lynnie? Honey? Ryan, get the doctor."

Lynnie dragged her eyes open. The world wavered and swung, then her mother's face slowly settled into focus. "Mama?"

Her mother's fingers tightened around hers. "I'm here."

Her throat hurt. They must have intubated her while she was under. "Are we going soon?"

Her mother leaned closer. "What?"

Lynnie tried to speak louder. "Going soon?"

"Where?"

Where? Lynnie's entire life had been about this trip for the past four years. "Planet," she managed. "New--planet."

Her mother touched her face, stroking her hair lightly so as not to dislodge her breathing tube. "Sweetie--we're there."

"What?" How could they be there? She was still sick. G889 was supposed to make her better.

"On G889. We landed yesterday."

Familiar footsteps approached, and Lynnie looked past her mother to see Ryan and Dr. Vasquez. "Ry--" she said.

He gave her knee a rough pat through the blanket. "Took you long enough," he said with forced cheer.

"We're here?" she asked him.

"Yeah," he said. "We landed. You've been lying around for a day, lazybones." His hand, still on her knee, trembled.

Dr. Vasquez said brightly, "Let's have a look at your numbers, young lady!"

Lynnie let him pick up her arm for the blood sample and listen to her heart and do all the other dull and painful doctor things that always happened. She avoided her brother's and mother's gazes, staring up at the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. They were the same as the lights in the station hospital, all white and glaring.

G889 was just like the stations. It hadn't worked. And now she was going to die.


	7. Jumping the Gun

Jumping the Gun

Devon didn't have to physically drag anybody from their beds in the morning, but it was a close thing. Breakfast was late and unappetizing, and from the looks Cameron was giving her, he would have rather had no help at all than what he'd gotten. She thanked him profusely, reminded him of the colonists' inexperience with actual cooking, and begged for patience--a process she was going to have to get used to, she thought ruefully.

During breakfast, she dealt with so many requests to switch duties that she resorted to announcing, "There will be _no_ switching of duties. I appreciate that nobody is used to this kind of work, but it's all necessary to the smooth function of this community, and you will have to get used to it as soon as possible. Remember that duties will rotate on a daily basis. The only people who will stay on one detail are the work leaders, who know what they're doing and who will teach you. That's final. Please don't ask me again."

"Nice," John said, helping her down from the table top. "So about the people you're putting under me--"

She started to snarl, then recognized the button-pushing look in his eye. "You," she muttered. "No switching means _no switching_."

"Got it, but I'm not looking forward to weekend tinkerers who think they're God's gift to a tool belt."

"Opinion noted and filed," she said crisply and took a bite. "Oh, my god." She reached for the salt shaker in the middle of the table. "Did these things start out life as eggs?"

"That's the legend. What I'd give for a bottle of ketchup."

Uly leaned forward. "Hey, Mom," he said. "When are we gonna bring the Terrians to see my friends?"

For what felt like the seventieth time, she said, "Honey, be patient. Julia and I have got to talk to the medical staff, show them your records--and don't forget that the Terrians won't take any kids whose parents haven't given permission." That had been an absolute condition. Devon hadn't forgotten the fear that had almost eaten her alive when Uly had been taken. She still wasn't entirely sure the Terrians understood the concept of parents and children--according to Uly, it worked differently for them--but they'd agreed.

"When are you gonna do that?" he persisted.

"After breakfast."

"Can I come?"

"Why don't you wait a little while, and let them get used to the idea. I'm sure they'll all want to talk to you later."

His face fell, then brightened with a new thought. "If they want to talk this afternoon, can I get out of work detail?" He was on fish duty that afternoon.

She chose something from her vast repertoire of Mom Looks--in this case, You're Pushing It, Young Man. He sat back in his seat with a sigh. "True doesn't have to rotate," he muttered.

"That's cuz my dad needs my help, stupid," True said from John's other side.

"Enough with the stupid," John said. "And about you helping me on the ship--"

"What," True said in a dangerous voice. Devon winced.

"I want you to join one of the work groups instead."

True looked like she'd just been sentenced to death by suffocation in Grendler spit. "What? But--"

"Do you really wanna hang around the ship all day? With a bunch of old jumpers and mechs?"

"Yeah," she said stubbornly. "I know those guys. I don't know any of the colonist kids."

"Those guys on the ship are gonna clear out as soon as she's fixed. You should get some friends your own age."

True slapped her silverware on the table. "All the kids my own age are _stupid!_"

Uly frowned and opened his mouth. Devon shook her head at him. One fight at this table was about all any of them needed.

"Did I not just say enough with the stupid?"

"I'm not gonna do it!"

"That wasn't a request!"

"But Dad--"

"_True_!" he said sharply.

She wasn't a complete fool. She shut up.

He continued evenly, "You can help me on the ship when your group comes around to it. But you're going in one of the work groups, and that's final."

If looks could have killed, he would have been dust.

* * *

"Jesus," John muttered when breakfast was finally over. They'd left Uly and True in the gathering space, where school would be held six mornings a week. The older children would join their parents on the various work details in the afternoon. "Is it me, or is my kid ready to rumble twenty hours out of twenty-four these days?"

"Gets it from her father," Devon said cheerfully.

He shot her a look very similar to the one True had given him during breakfast.

She relented. "Look, no matter how it seems, she's not possessed. It's just adolescence hitting."

He said, "Like a hand grenade," kissed her, and went off to load the ATV with his equipment.

Devon thought, _At least around here, she can't rob a convenience store with a carrot stick, _and grinned. Although she'd told the court otherwise when she was fourteen, she was still proud of that stunt.

Every time during the morning that she tried to call Dr. Vasquez and set up a meeting, he was busy. Several of the children had come down with coughs due to some allergen or other, and a lot of nervous parents had admitted their children to the hospital just in case. New Pacifica General was full to the brim and buzzing like a hive full of caffeinated bees.

Devon tried to be patient, knowing where Dr. Vasquez's priorities had to lie, but she finally went to the hospital, prepared to follow him around until he agreed to a meeting. He must have seen it in her face, because he said, "I'll give you ten minutes. If I don't show up in my office at--" he checked his chrono "--eleven-fifteen, you have my permission to hunt me down like a dog."

"You joke, but don't think I won't," Devon said. "Where's Julia? I'd like her with us."

He said, "Why would you need Dr. Heller for this conversation?"

Devon blinked. There had been more than professional status insult in those words. "She can give you a better medical insight into what happened to Uly than I can."

"Well, if you must." He turned away.

Devon didn't much favor hanging around his cubicle for the next ten minutes like a bored intern, so she wandered into the little cluster of cubicles allotted to the psychotherapists. It was like another land completely. While the doctors made do with the work tables and shelf units the advancers had provided, the therapists had wasted no time in replacing them with chairs, rugs, baskets of toys, drawing pads, and other tools of their trade.

She found Rita Vasquez unpacking a basket of toys. "Oh, Devon," the psychologist said, looking up from a stuffed purple elephant. "Come on in."

"This is nice," Devon said.

Rita surveyed her domain. "Much better," she said. "Did you need to see me for something?"

Devon pulled up one of the chairs. "I just wanted to see how you and your team were settling in. I know the facilities aren't exactly what we'd planned, but--"

Rita folded the plastic crate flat and set it on top of a stack of empties in the corner. "I understand completely. Things just didn't go as planned all around."

Devon rolled her eyes. "Now _there's_ an understatement." She rubbed one temple, thinking ruefully of the complaints she'd been fielding all morning.

Rita settled herself in the other chair. "You know, Devon, you have nothing to ashamed of here. Considering your limitations, you've done a phenomenal job."

Devon almost choked on her surprise. It was the first time anybody outside of the advance team had told her that. She stared at her knees until the hot feeling behind her eyes subsided. "Thank you," she said, when that was managed. "It's--it's good to hear that. It wasn't just me, you know. I had wonderful people on the advance team."

"You depend on them?"

"Without even thinking about it."

Rita sat back in her chair, her brows raised. "That's an interesting sentiment, from you. I seem to remember a number of discussions on your reluctance to surrender control."

Devon ducked her head. "Yes, well," she said. "Around here, unless you learn to trust others, you're just screwing yourself over."

"And that's another unique sentiment," Rita said. "The wording especially."

Devon laughed. "John's rubbing off on me. He can be a little--blunt."

"You've become close to him?"

Devon regarded her. It was usually hard to read Rita Vasquez. She had been a therapist for close to thirty years, and had perfected that all-accepting, non-judgmental demeanor. "Yes," she said slowly. "We had more than our fair share of clashes--still do--but I would trust him with my life. In fact, I have."

"And a great deal more than your life, it seems," Rita said.

Devon met her eyes. "Yes."

"How do you feel about that?"

"We're not in session, Rita," Devon said.

Rita smiled, looking down at her fingertips again. "Sorry. Habit. Speaking of which--do I have your permission to re-initiate sessions with Uly? I do have two years, and a number of traumatic events, to catch up on."

"You mean when I nearly died?"

"That too, but I also mean his restoration to health. Not all trauma is bad, you know, but it all produces conflicting and difficult feelings."

"And you'll also find out what to expect for the other children."

"Every child is different, Devon," Rita said. She said it so often it should have sounded automatic, but after thirty years, each syllable still rang with conviction.

Once, as a gag gift, one of the other Syndrome mothers had started a sampler with that phrase on it. Anne Jones had been a throwback, enjoying all manner of old-fashioned arts and crafts. Her daughter, Robin, had died before she was halfway through, and the beautifully embroidered letters tapered off into a ghostly outline right around the word "is." But Rita had still had it framed and mounted on her wall with her diplomas and certificates.

Devon sat back. "I was going to ask what the Syndrome children think of G889, but I'll rephrase. What trends are you and your team seeing in their reactions?"

Rita smiled a little at the irony in Devon's voice. "One of the strongest, especially in the older children, is disappointment."

Devon sighed. "Yes, well, they're hardly the only ones."

"Not in the facilities. In their own state of health."

"I forgot about that," Devon said after a moment. "They expected an instant cure, just by coming here, didn't they?"

Rita nodded. "No matter how many times we explained it to them, G889 and New Pacifica loomed large in their conception as a place of magical and effortless health. They'd get off the ship and everything would change."

"How are they taking it?"

"Not well, as you might imagine."

Devon leaned forward. "Rita. Listen. The planet will heal them."

"In time," Rita allowed. "Most of them. But--"

"All of them," Devon insisted. "I'm not being rhetorical. It's not magic, it's definitely not free, but any parent with the courage to let them go will have a healthy child by the winter."

It was the first time she'd ever seen Rita Vasquez at an utter loss for words. The therapist stared at her as if wondering whether she had any spare straitjackets in her things. Finally, she said, "Devon, I'm not sure I understand."

Devon bit her lip, debating whether to tell Rita before the meeting with Miguel. Rita was, after all, the head of the therapists' team. Before she could make that decision, though, the screaming started.

Devon bolted so fast her chair went flying. She raced down the rows of cubicles and burst into the ward, looking for the imminent threat to life and/or limb. All she saw was Uly, with . . .

With a group of Terrians, standing there in the middle of the hospital like seven-foot corpses with enormous staffs.

Mothers screamed, fathers shouted, children cowered under the covers. Devon had almost forgotten how strange and wild the Terrians looked on first view, but she remembered now, very well. "Everyone!" she shouted. "Everyone, please calm down! They're not going to hurt us!" She remembered what had worked so well a couple of days before and stuck her fingers in her mouth, letting out a piercing whistle. Even that didn't penetrate the chaos. She gave that up and kept shouting.

Finally, the ward fell silent, except for a few whimpers and the sound of fast, terrified breathing.

"Everyone," Devon said. "Please, it's all right. These are Terrians. They're one of the groups native to this planet."

"What do they want?" Darla Ketchum quavered. "What do they want from us?"

"I brought them to see you," Uly said. He was white to the lips, scared and confused. The Terrians stood around him, stiff, their eyes flickering over the nest of humans they'd walked into. More screams exploded when one dropped into a crouch, pressing his hand against the wooden floors in a futile effort to sink back into the ground.

"Please!" Devon called out. "Calm down, you're scaring them!"

When silence was again restored, Dr Vasquez turned on Uly. "Why would you do a thing like that?"

"Because they're gonna _help_ us!" Uly cried.

Devon started, "Uly--"

He raised his voice. "They helped me. They took me into the ground and they made me part Terrian and now I'm all better and they're gonna do the same thing for every kid here!"

Appalled silence blanketed the hospital. Devon put a hand to her head.

Finally, Darla said in a faint, horrified voice, "Part . . . _Terrian?"_

Devon looked across the ward at Julia. The look on the doctor's face agreed with her; they'd lost their chance for anything resembling an orderly explanation of the Terrian healing process. All they could do right at this moment was damage control, and the first thing that entailed was-- "Uly," she said. "Please lead our guests outside. Apologize--"

"But--"

She kept talking, low and level. "Apologize for the fact that we weren't ready to meet them yet. Ask them if they're still willing to come back."

"But Mom--"

"Ulysses."

His stiff shoulders sagged. "Yes, ma'am."

"Thank you."

He turned to his friends and spoke in the soft, trilling Terrian language. Ben O'Connor said in a low, appalled voice, "He's _talking_ to those things--"

The Terrians, Uly in the middle, turned and started for the door. Their footsteps were heavy and clumsy on the wooden floorboards, and their staffs clunked with every step. Near the door, one paused and turned to look at Lynnie McNab. He took a step forward, his head tilted curiously.

Ryan stepped in between the Terrian and his sister's bed. "You touch my sister and I'll kill you," he snarled, his voice shuddering with fear.

The Terrian stepped back. Devon had no idea how much human language it or any Terrian understood, but Ryan's twisted face and balled fists didn't need language. Uly trilled something low, and the Terrian followed him out the door.

* * *

Uly sat with his knees hugged to his chest. His eyes burned, but he wasn't gonna cry, because he was ten and a half years old and just because he'd messed everything up big-time, he _wasn't_ gonna cry.

After awhile, a shadow fell over him. He put his forehead down on his knees.

"Ulysses," his mom said. "Do you have an explanation for me?"

"I'm sorry," he said, the words muffled by the fabric of his pants.

"Apology accepted, but I asked for an explanation."

He picked his head up. He knew that voice. There was no way out of this one. "I thought it would be okay," he said, still unable to look up at his mom. "They're my friends. I thought they'd understand."

"Uly, I asked you not to bring the Terrians around until I'd talked to the doctors and the parents."

"You were gonna talk to them today," he mumbled, knowing it wasn't an adequate excuse.

"But I hadn't yet. And what happened in there is _exactly_ why I asked you to hold off."

He screwed up his face, choking on the knot in his throat.

After a moment of silence, she said, "I'm still waiting."

It burst out of him. "I'm so stinking tired of being the only one like me!"

"Honey, we're all the only one like ourselves--"

"I'm not talking about--" he floundered for the proper word. "--individualality--"

"Individuality?"

He steamed on. "--or being yourself or _whatever_, I mean I'm the only one who can do this!" With that, he leaned over and thrust both his arms into the ground up to the elbow.

As always, it felt like he was shoving them into slightly thick water. He knew that this ground was hard enough to walk on, but behind that knowledge was the additional fact that if he wanted, he could swim through it like a seal. It was largely a matter of choice--his own--which it would be.

Just like him.

After a moment, he drew his hands out and set them in his lap. He didn't want to look at his mom. It bugged her when he did Terrian stuff around her. Maybe because she couldn't do it too--he didn't know. But he'd always tried to hold off doing Terrian things when other people were around, at least obvious Terrian things.

She let out a long sigh and sat down in front of him. "Honey," she said carefully. "Uly. Look at me, please."

He lifted his eyes.

She brushed his cheek with her knuckles. "You are the only one like you. I knew that. I didn't know that it was so hard on you, being that way."

He played with a stone he'd pulled up from the ground. It had a fossil in it--a squiggly snaky thing. He had a real good collection of fossil rocks now, and Julia was always saying that when she had time she was going to look at them and put them in her database.

"Knowing that now, I understand why you made the mistake that you did. What do I always say about mistakes?"

"You can come back from them," he said obediently, but he wondered if his mom had ever had to come back from really gigundo colossal mistakes. She always seemed like she knew what she was doing.

"Exactly. Right now it's very important to be patient and not go too fast with the colonists. They need to get used to this place. Don't you remember how scary it was, the first little while? Before we got used to it?"

"No," he said.

"Think back to the first months, sweetheart. None of us felt like we belonged here, or--"

"I did," he said. "I belonged here."

"Uly--"

"I never felt like I was supposed to be back there. I thought my friends felt the exact same. I thought they'd understand about the Terrians." He felt stupid now. He'd never been able to tell them anything about the Terrians, but they were s'posed to just know?

"Well, they didn't."

"No kidding," he said bitterly.

She tapped his knee. "Don't be snotty."

"Sorry."

She let out her breath. "We're going to have to help them get used to the Terrians. Show them they're not--well--harmful, and--"

He looked up at that. "They're not coming back," he said.

"Who?" his mom said.

"The Terrians."

She sounded like he'd hit her in the stomach. "Ever?"

He shrugged helplessly. "They said obviously the parents weren't ready. They said they're not gonna steal any more seeds--" He shook his head, remembering that he was talking Human. "Any more kids. Like they did me."

"What are we supposed to do then?"

"They said the parents have to go to them. They have to take their kids and go to them." He remembered how scared everyone had been. Max had screamed, and Angie had cried, and Lynnie's mom had thrown herself over Lynnie like she was protecting her from an avalanche or something. His voice cracked. "Mom, what if they die before that?"

His mom's arms came around him. "Shh," she breathed into his hair. "Don't worry. We'll--we'll find some way to fix it. None of your friends are going to die, honey."

She always used to say that when he was younger, that _he_ wasn't going to die. He'd always known different, even though he said he believed her. Of course, she'd turned out right in the end. But now, curled up in her arms, Uly wasn't sure if even his mom could make this better.


	8. Square One

Square One

Alonzo had been out on the water all day, and all he wanted to do was sluice himself off and pass out. He wouldn't even particularly miss dinner, not if it resembled breakfast and lunch.

But Devon said, "Alonzo, I need you especially at this meeting."

Even over the flickery gear image, he could see the tension in her face. "What for?" he asked, working a hand through his hair. It crunched with salt and sand. He made a face. "Something happen while I was incommunicado?"

The gear didn't work especially well out on the water, and they'd all taken to leaving it behind and relying on hand and arm signals to communicate boat to boat. Most of the morning had been spent trying to teach their work group those signals, without a whole lot of success. They'd nearly wrecked one boat, and they'd lost a good portion of the afternoon's catch when another had flipped over.

His hand knocked the headband of his gear off-kilter, and he pulled it back into place in time to hear, "--the Terrians into the hospital."

"Wait, I missed that. The Terrians came into the hospital?"

"Uly brought them."

"_Uly_? When was this?"

"Over the lunch break."

Alonzo moaned. If he'd been on another duty, he could have been around at lunch to help out, but everyone on fish duty had eaten on the beach, because it was too far to walk back.

"They're not happy," Devon continued.

"The Terrians or the colonists?"

"Either. Both. It doesn't look good. The Terrians are saying they're not going to come back, that the parents have to go to them now."

_"What?"_

"You didn't see it when they walked in," she told him. "It was pandemonium. People were terrified. The staff were hours getting the kids calmed down. They had to dose some of them."

"Why did Uly bring them in the first place? I thought we agreed to wait."

Devon looked away. "He was frustrated. He got tired of waiting. He went and got them on his own."

Alonzo kicked a tree, startling a passing colonist and sending a bird screeching into the sky. "Those talks took weeks! They said they'd--how can--" He took a deep breath. "Devon," he said. "I'm giving you fair warning. I'm gonna strangle your kid."

"Never mind that. Right now, we need some serious damage control. Julia and I tried explaining it today at the hospital, but they were all so upset that I don't think we got too far."

He took in a breath, then let it out, trying to think calmly. "Any chance the Terrians will come tonight?"

"I'm not so sure that would be a good idea. Look, the meeting's right after dinner. Just be ready to talk, okay?"

"Yeah, sure. Hey, Devon, if you're trying to get them into a good mood, that cooking might not be the best way to do it."

That got a smile from her for the first time. "I'll let you tell that to Cameron," she said, and signed off.

* * *

Over dinner, or what was passing as dinner tonight, Julia managed to add a few details to Devon's report of the events at the hospital. Every one made the picture a little darker. Alonzo put his head on the table. "It was supposed to be easy," he said to the table top. "We got it all worked out and it was supposed to be easy and painless and I swear to God I'm gonna tie Uly to a tree and let Grendlers dribble on him."

"Stop that, you'll get splinters in your lips," Julia said. "Devon wants us to talk to the parents now, before the meeting. Some one-on-one. Like she's doing."

Alonzo sat up and looked where Julia was pointing. Devon stood in the middle of the room, talking earnestly to a clump of parents. He couldn't hear what she was saying, but just reading the body language of her audience, she wasn't having a whole lot of luck.

The sight made him feel guilty. Besides, if he walked around, he might actually find the woman he'd been seeking for the past day and a half. "All right, let's go."

The attempt only made his mood worse. He kept hearing words like _monster, creature, disgusting, _and he felt like smacking them all. Humans weren't any fashion plates to the Terrians either, who thought they were soft-skinned and barbaric and lonely. They were pretty close to right.

Even the parents who'd been on fish duty with him, and therefore hadn't seen the Terrians, weren't terribly receptive to reason. They'd all talked to their kids, and to other parents, and, if anything, were more terrified of the exaggerated horrors that were relayed to them. Alonzo poured on the charm and got a few of them to listen--a minor victory at best, but he'd take what he could get.

Something was up with Jules, though. She was okay talking to the parents, if a little stiff, but the minute they got within ten feet of another doctor, she clammed up. It wasn't like her. When he asked her about it, she said, "Nothing, Alonzo."

He thought about pushing further, but shrugged and scanned the crowd again before settling on another pair of suspicious-looking parents.

It was lucky for Uly that the worst of Alonzo's ire had been worked off by the time he found the kid. Devon's son sat off on his own, with his head hanging and his feet hooked around the legs of his chair, looking about as miserable as a kid could look. Alonzo sat down across from him.

"You're mad at me too, I bet," Uly said, still staring at the table top.

Alonzo thought about lying, but he said, "Yeah."

Uly heaved a sigh. "Join the freakin' club," he said, sounding so much like Danz that Alonzo had to bite the inside of his cheek. "Even the Terrians are PO'd."

That caught Alonzo's attention. "What for?" he asked as Devon started the meeting.

Uly said under his mother's carefully calm speech, "Because I brought them before anybody was ready."

"Were they insulted?" As far as Alonzo knew, it took a lot to insult a Terrian, but having a whole building full of aliens start screaming like you were the most hideous thing since Frankenstein might just do it.

"I dunno. But they said they wouldn't steal seeds again. They really mean it about the parents."

"I guess we hammered that into their heads good." Parents and children was a concept that had taken forever to explain. Even by the time the Terrians had agreed not to take children without parental permission, they'd remained politely puzzled over the idea. Maybe because they didn't completely understand it, they were determined to honor that tradition.

Up on the stage, Devon had been interrupted three or four times already and was showing signs of losing her cool. "The Terrians are our neighbors, not monsters. One of our advance crew, has been in contact with them since virtually the beginning of our time here. Alonzo? Why don't you--"

"What do you mean, _in contact with?"_ someone said suspiciously.

"Maggie, we're holding our questions until the end," Devon said.

Alonzo answered it anyway. "The Terrians communicate through dreams," he said. "For whatever reason, they picked me to dream with, and I'm sort of an expert on them by now."

"Those things get in your head?" said someone else.

"Darla," Devon said.

Alonzo said, "Look, the last thing they want to do is hurt anybody. They can't hurt anybody. It's just not in their--their nature, you know? The only time I ever heard of Terrians hurting humans, they got thrown out of their tribe for twenty years."

"So they are capable of harm," a mother said angrily.

"So are we, but do we go around hurting innocent kids?" Alonzo shot back. "The only thing they're gonna do is help."

"What _they_ call helping," a doctor said. "Messing with DNA--doesn't anyone remember the mid-twenty-first century?"

"Apples and oranges, Dr. Morton," Devon said. "You can't compare the two. For one thing, Uly's alive. And normal."

"Normal?" a dad shouted. "He's part alien! How can you call that normal?"

Devon snapped, "My son is not a witch, a monster, a freak, a half-breed, or any of the other ugly words I've heard thrown around today. He's completely himself and completely healthy--"

"But not completely human."

"No," Julia said, standing up, "but mostly. Ninety-five, maybe ninety-six percent."

The doctors all looked at her like she was a traitor, or scum. Weird.

Devon said, "He's a normal little boy. He just has . . . some extra gifts, that's all."

A father said, "Well, he can keep them. I'm not giving Hari to those creatures."

"You're not _giving_--" Devon started, and a squabble broke out.

Uly stood up and said, "'Scuse me." When nobody heard, he climbed on the table and screamed, "SCUSE ME!"

What it lacked in dignity, it made up for in efficiency. The meeting fell into startled silence. Devon said, "Uly?" in a wary voice.

Still standing on the table, Uly said, "I'm sorry I brought the Terrians to meet you before my mom got the chance to explain about them. I'm sorry I scared everybody. But they're not what you're saying. They're not nasty creatures. They're not gonna hurt your kids, they're gonna _fix_ them."

"Thank you, honey," Devon said. "He's right--"

"I'm not done, Mom," Uly said sharply, and she looked at him as if wondering who he was and what he'd done with her easy-going son.

His voice wobbled when he continued, "I heard all the names you called me. They're mean and wrong. I'm not exactly like you guys anymore, but I'm healthy. All the meds and therapies and operations that those doctors gave me before, they didn't work. Going with the Terrians did. If you don't want your kids being a little different instead of sick and maybe dead, then I don't know why you came here and you should just go back to the stations." He took another breath, then seemed to lose all his steam. "Um," he mumbled. "I'm done now." He jumped off the table and sat down, very quickly.

For a moment, the meeting was as silent as the aftermath of a bomb. Alonzo exchanged glances with Julia, marveling at how thoroughly and efficiently Uly had managed to insult ninety percent of New Pacifica. Current wisdom held that Uly had been a test-tube baby, and Alonzo wondered if it was remotely possible that Devon Adair had managed to buy some Danziger sperm.

Devon said into the silence, "My son is right, even if he put it a little bluntly. We brought our children here because it was the best chance for their restoration to health. Now I'm telling you that the Terrians are, again, your children's best chance at full health. I know it feels like a risk, but as Syndrome parents, we've taken bigger ones before. Not just coming here, but operations, drug trials, therapies. None of them were guaranteed, and some did more harm than good. But you took the chance. If you had the courage for those, you have the courage for this."

She walked to a big, wooden-framed slate board that was hung up directly across from the front door and picked up one of the chunks of native chalk that sat in a box. Across the top of the board, she wrote "MOON CROSS" in square letters, and underlined it with a quick swipe of her chalk. She turned again.

"Some of you may have heard of Moon Cross already. It's a lunar event of great importance in the G889 year. I've picked that date for a few reasons. One, it's in the equivalent of an Earth month--thirty days from tonight." She wrote the number 30 next to the words and outlined it with a box. "That gives you plenty of time to think. Second, it's one of the times in the year that the Terrians are the most powerful, and therefore able to heal a great number of children at once. Third and finally, it's the beginning of winter, when the Terrians hibernate. Moon Cross is your child's last chance at a Terrian healing for three months. Some of your children may not have three months."

Like most everyone else, Alonzo looked at Brenda and Ryan McNab. Everyone knew that Lynnie was hanging on by a fingernail, that even thirty days might be optimistic. The boy curled his lip at them all. Brenda looked steadily at nothing.

Devon continued, "Now, I'm not going to force anyone into this choice. That's the last thing I want to do. The Terrians have told us repeatedly that they _will not_ take a child without the permission of his or her parents. You need to make the decision yourself. Talk to me, talk to Julia, talk to Alonzo, talk to Uly. We have the most knowledge, in different ways, of this change and what it will mean. Beyond that, talk to the advance crew, who have all learned to live with the Terrians as neighbors. If you make the decision to allow the Terrians to heal your child--to restore them to the full health that you see in Uly right now, today--I want to write your child's name on this board so everyone can see." She held up the chunk of chalk, then dropped it back into the box and brushed the dust from her fingers. "We'll answer any questions you have now."

The questions didn't so much start as explode, and none of them sounded encouraging. Alonzo answered questions about dreaming--"Do you mean they can make you dream what they want?"--and what had happened the time Terrians had hurt humans. A quick glance from Devon told him to tone it down, and he tried to make it sound like an accident, emphasizing the way that the Terrians who'd killed Mary's parents had been cast out from the tribe. As it was, even the toned-down version caused murmurs and angry head-shakes.

It went on so long that the questioners all started to run into each other like melting wax. Or maybe it was just that all the questions had started to repeat themselves. Cameron brought them cups of the kinda-coffee Bess had figured out how to make out of seeds. It tasted like boiled goat turds, but it sure as hell packed in the caffeine. Alonzo dribbled honey into his until it was drinkable. Devon knocked it back straight and kept going.

Alonzo looked down in the middle of his fifth explanation of Terrian dream communication and saw Danz making wind-it-up gestures at him. He frowned very slightly, and his friend pointed off to the right. Alonzo glanced over and realized that Devon, while she looked all relaxed and casual with one hand on the back of a chair, was holding on just a little too tight. "--and I think that's it for tonight," he finished up.

"One more question," Devon said, her voice so firm and clear it practically fooled Alonzo. "Yes, Trent."

"How do we know the Terrians won't just snatch our children? They say they won't, but--"

"They don't lie," Alonzo almost snarled. He'd had it way up to here with these xenophobes. "That's a human thing. I'm not just talking to them in those dreams, I'm thinking with them. I'd know if they were planning that. Which they won't," he added.

Devon cut in, "Alonzo and Uly will maintain contact with them, and pass on any information they think we should know."

Alonzo kept his face blank to cover up the sudden sinking of his heart at her words. It wasn't that he didn't want to take on that burden. It wasn't like he'd been doing anything different for the past two years. He'd love to maintain contact with the Terrians.

Trouble was, he hadn't had a Terrian dream in three weeks.

_It's a lull,_ he told himself. _You've had lulls before. The tribe's not feeling too talkative right now, is all._

The meeting broke up reluctantly. Danz pretended that he'd called a halt because Uly and True were both half-asleep, and Devon pretended to believe him, and they understood each other perfectly.

Alonzo found Julia. "I'm about ready to pass out. Care to join me?"

Julia looked as if she might pass out, with or without him, right there on the floor. But she tucked her hair behind her ears and said, "I've got to get back to the hospital."

"What? You were there all day."

"I was there all morning," Julia corrected him. "I have a split shift today."

"Until when?"

"Midnight. I have to, Alonzo, I'm the doctor on duty. I'm already late."

"At least kiss me goodnight. Just once?" He puckered up and made smoochy noises.

It got her to laugh, finally, and she kissed him. "I'll try not to wake you up when I come in."

He held on for a moment. "You can always wake me up, you know that."

She smiled at him, then pulled away and started working her way through the crowd. He watched her go, wishing he'd pulled her pins out while she was kissing him. He really hated it when she had her hair up like that. She disappeared out the door, and he sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, wondering if he would make it to his bed. He stretched, then joined the crowd jostling their way out.

He was so loopy that he stepped on several feet. Mumbling "Sorry, sorry," he finally managed to get out the door, where he promptly ran smack into someone, almost knocking them over. "Whoa! Sorry."

"I'm fine," the woman said.

He stared down at her. "You," he said. "I've been looking for you."

Rita Vasquez looked back up at him. "You've found me," she said. "Did you need to talk to me about something?"

"You know damn well I do," he said, and added deliberately, "_señora."_

"Well, then," she said. She started off on the path that led out of the square and behind the hospital.

Alonzo started after her. Suddenly, he felt wide awake.


	9. Thwarted

Thwarted

Rita wished she'd thought to bring a lumalight, but if she went into the hospital to get one, she might lose her nerve. She kept going down the path, walking from shadowy patches to thin moonlight. _His_ footsteps crunched on the dirt and twigs underfoot. If she'd been with anyone else, it might have been downright romantic.

But she was walking with Alonzo Solace.

All her life, he'd been a holo on the wall, a name on legal documents. His ghost had haunted family history--the one who was gone, and yet wasn't. Now he was here, transformed from a larger-than-life figure into a very human man.

She wondered what to say.

He was the one to break the silence, eventually. "Who are you?" he asked, stopping in a smudge of shadow. "What do you want? How do you know Spanish? It's been illegal on the stations since before you were born."

She was right. He didn't know her. He had no idea who she was. "I was seven when they passed the Linguistic Standardization Act," she said. "Thank you for the compliment."

He brushed that aside, asking again, "How do you know Spanish?"

"Maybe I learned it in school." How petty of her, but she wanted to make him work for this. "Purely for the purposes of study. It is, as you pointed out, illegal to use in everyday surroundings."

He made a rude noise. "You don't speak it like you learned it out of a program. You speak it like you learned it in _el cuad_."

"Which barrio?" she threw back.

"I don't know. East Los, Phoenix, San Antonio--"

"Barrio Tucson, maybe?"

"Yeah," he said slowly. "Or Barrio Tucson."

She waited, arms crossed.

After a moment, he burst out, "Whatever it is you think I know, I don't. Okay? So stop waiting for me to get it on my own, and just tell me."

Rita set her jaw. It was no use feeling disappointed. What had she expected? "Do you even know my name?"

"Rita Vasquez," he said promptly. "I asked."

"My full name."

"No, why would I?"

She put her hands on her hips and looked up at the sky, laughing mirthlessly. "He affected my entire life, why would he know my name?" she asked the half-moons, riding low in the sky.

"Look, don't try to tell me--I've been on suppressors since I started sleepjumping, I've never missed--"

"Rita Mercedes Sepulveda Vasquez." She included her maiden name on purpose, knowing he'd seen it at least once. "That's my name. That's my full name."

Even in the silvery moonlight, he paled. "Rita Mercedes?"

"From my grandmothers. I was the first girl. You know how it's done."

"Your nana Mercedes. Who was she?"

He was getting it now, she could see. "You tell me. I think you know."

He slid down the tree until he crouched on the ground, as if trying to shield himself from something. "Mercedes Angela Solace," he said in a raw voice. "She was the youngest. She had three brothers. When she was twelve, the oldest of them signed into the sleepjumpers' training program. When she was twenty-three, he abandoned them forever."

Rita blinked. "Abandoned--?"

He lifted his head to look almost straight up at her. "You're my great-niece."

She crouched down in front of him. "Yes." She wondered how old he was--not in real time, but how many years he'd been awake for.

"What do you want from me?" he demanded in a raw travesty of a voice.

"I don't know," she said. "I always thought I would thank you, if I ever met you."

He tried to push away from her, forgetting that his back was braced against a tree, and fell over sideways. "You have nothing to thank me for. I abandoned you, too."

"I wasn't even born," she said.

"If I'd been there I would have seen you when you were born." He scrambled to his feet.

"_Tío_," she cried.

"Don't call me that," he said, and bolted for town.

* * *

_Days until Moon Cross: 29_

Julia pulled the hospital door closed behind her. "Well," she said. "That went well, didn't it."

Devon crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh, were you there too?"

Julia said, "Devon--"

"I really could have used some help in there, you know." The medical staff had sat in front of her like waxwork dummies, with faces cast in permanently skeptical lines. She would have had better luck convincing the wall that the Terrians should heal the Syndrome children.

Julia shot her a sharp, defensive look. "I brought every scrap of data I had."

"Is there something in the Hippocratic Oath that says you can't open your mouth to support your position?" Devon knew she was taking out her frustration on the younger woman, but she didn't care. "I appreciate that it's strange for you to be working with Miguel and his team right now, but--"

"Hey!" Julia flared to life for the first time in three days. "For as long as we've been here, you've never thrown that mistake in my face. God knows you had other things to accuse me of, but let's just leave that record unblemished, shall we?"

Devon winced, remembering that the other woman was her friend. "I wasn't even thinking about that." It was true; while Julia's affair with Miguel had been more or less public knowledge within the Syndrome community, the memory had faded over the past two years as Devon got to know her. "I just meant, I know it's an adjustment for you, working with other doctors after being on your own all this time. But I need your medical testimony to convince them."

"My testimony?" Julia's voice dripped acid. "I'm the most junior member of the team. I'm barely qualified to be Vasquez's intern."

Devon wondered why that sounded so familiar, then flushed. "Speaking of mistakes we're not going to bring up," she said. "And that was over two years ago. Since then--"

"To them it was last week."

"So show them you've changed."

"I'm trying, but nothing happens overnight."

"A few things," Devon remarked dryly. Then she sighed and pushed her hand through her hair. "We have less than a month. We need to do something."

"Well, I don't know what you'll do, but I'm going to finish up the first half of my shift," Julia said, and went back into the hospital.

* * *

Devon's day went more or less downhill from there. She dealt with more complaints, tried to talk to more unresponsive parents and medical staff, and even happened to be around when Ryan McNab had the bright idea to put the purple-gold native peaches into the cider machine. Unfortunately, it had been built for apples.

Like everyone else who'd been inside the blast radius, she took a shower. At least, that was the plan, but what screwed that up was a call just as she exited her room, clean clothes in hand.

Twenty minutes later, so far beyond the end of her rope that it had faded into the distance, she said, "Look, Jane, try to work this out with Marissa yourself. If that absolutely does not work, then find somebody to switch with. There are _no_ single rooms. No, I will not find somebody for you. I have enough to do. Please handle this yourself." She hung up, then pulled her gear off and dropped it to the floor, giving brief thought to stomping on it.

"What happened to you?"

She gave John a baleful look. Her hair swung with the turn of her head, one sticky strand adhering to her cheek. "Peach pits jammed up the grinder. It was volcanic."

"What?" He gave her a quick up-and-down look, but the presence of all her limbs and the absence of spouting blood seemed to reassure him. That taken care of, he asked after the next most vital thing. "My machine?"

"Now a rather attractive abstract sculpture. We hosed off the juice, though." She tried to brush her hair out of her face and got her hand stuck. "Mostly."

He eyed her. "Who do I need to kill?"

"Nobody," she said, extricating her hand and wincing as a few strands came away with it. "It's fixable. What happened to you?" He was head-to-toe grime and grease.

"Crawling around the ship," he said, rubbing his hands over his face. That only made it worse. "After twenty-four years, she's gunky as hell, even with auto-maintenance."

Her gear went off. She looked down at it and said, "_No._" After a moment, it went to messaging and she picked it up, hooking it on her belt.

"Popularity wearing thin?" he asked her, pushing his own door open. He paused to roll his eyes at the tornado aftermath of True's half of the room.

"Popularity makes it sound like I'm the head of the cheerleading squad," she muttered, leaning on the door jamb. "I feel more like the whipping boy." She hesitated, chewing on her lip. "Listen, um--question."

"Still about a month," he said, now head down in a crate.

"What?"

"The ship? It's still going to take a month to fix."

"That's good to know, but that's not what I meant. Does Julia seem--strange to you lately?"

He slung a pair of pants over his shoulder. "Besides her reversion to Dr. Uptight?"

Devon let out her breath. "So you noticed too."

"I'm not blind," he said, straightening up with a shirt added to the pants. "Neither is anybody else around here. It's 'Lonz leaving, isn't it? I told you--"

"I know what you told me. And I think that's part of it."

"Part?"

"If it starts to interfere with her work, I'm going to have to do something."

"Interfere with her work?" He made a rude noise, nudging her out of the way so he could close his door behind them. "This is Julia, remember? Our Julia. She's got doctoring right down in the DNA. Nothing interferes with her work. Anyway, what is this other part?"

"Private," she said sharply. "Honestly, you say _women_ gossip--"

Before he could respond to that, the door leading outside opened, and Trent almost ran them both over before stopping short. "Devon! I was looking for you. Why didn't you answer your gear?"

So that had been him. She said, "Look, Trent, can it wait?"

"I want to talk to you."

"Back off, Sadler," John said flatly.

Trent looked at him, obviously taking in every speck of grease. He turned back to Devon and said, "Alone."

"How about at dinner," she said. "Excuse me, we really need to--"

He didn't budge. "Devon--"

"Look," she snapped, abandoning diplomacy, "I've had a very long day and I'm covered in drying fruit juice. If I don't get a shower soon, I won't be responsible for my actions. Is this an emergency that I have to address right now? Or will it wait?"

"Not an emergency but--"

"Then we'll talk at dinner." She pushed past him

* * *

With a groan of relief, John tossed his shirt on the shower stall's bench. At the moment, peeling out of his greasy, dirty clothes was a pleasure right up there with kissing Devon. Or watching her chew out that Sadler. Which reminded him . . .

"Listen, I gotta know," he called over the wall. "What happened with you two?"

"The two of who?" In her stall, something hit the floor with a plop. "Me and my imaginary friend?" In the proximity of hot water, her mood had taken an obvious upswing.

"Sadler."

"Oh, him." She had to raise her voice over the sound of running water. "You see, we had a mad passionate affair. Uly is really his child, but we had to keep it from his scheming wife--"

"Adair," he said flatly. "C'mon now."

She dropped the silliness. "Honestly, there wasn't anything."

The knob squeaked loudly as he turned on the water. "Does he know that? Cuz the looks he's giving me, I could use in the garage to solder joints."

"We had a couple of dates," she said as he ducked into the lukewarming-up spray, "and--"

"Missed that last," he called out, scrubbing soap into his hair.

"I said, we had a couple of dates, but we decided not to pursue anything."

Okay, that was better, but not everything he wanted to hear. "Yeah? Why not?"

"It was a bad time for a relationship. It was right before we left. Things were complicated. We discussed it, and made a mutual agreement to table the issue until a more convenient time for both of us."

John's brows shot up, and he grinned. "You tabled the issue," he echoed, bracing his arm against the wall and letting the water slide down his back, rinsing away the soap. "Was this in the board room? Did you have a mediator?"

"Are you going to be impossible about this?"

He scrubbed until the water sloshing into the gutter drain ran clear. "Adair, was it a romance or a quarterly meeting? Cuz it sounds an awful lot like the second."

"It wasn't that cold-blooded. We were just being sensible. A relationship at that time would have been highly problematic."

He shut off the water and grabbed his towel. "Problematic like taking up with me in the middle of a cross-continental trek, six weeks after you nearly died? Not to mention the kids."

She threw a sponge over the wall. He caught it and threw it back. There was a splat. "Hey! Fine, you made your point."

He was sitting on the bench, working his feet into his beat-up boots, when she put her head around the curtain to his stall. "John, you're not jealous, are you? Of Trent?"

"Hell, no," he said with perfect honesty. "I'm way more inconvenient than he is, and you're still around. Means I've got something going for me."

She came all the way in and put her arms around his neck. "Maybe I'm just using you for sex."

He grabbed her around the waist and hauled her, laughing, onto his lap. "Yeah? Tell me more."

* * *

He wasn't the only advancer who'd noticed Sadler's dirty looks. Over poker that night, Baines asked him about it, and ears pricked up all around the table. He told them what Devon had told him, and most of them looked a little deflated that the story wasn't more spectacular. But Magus said, "Gotta feel sorry for the guy."

John curled his lip and made his discards. "Sure," he said, taking the two cards Baines handed him. Hunh. Not much better. "I'm all broken up over it."

"No, really," Magus insisted. "He has a real case on Devon, you can tell. They were starting something, even if it was on hold, and then he gets here and finds out she's gone on without him."

"Sleepjumper's gap," Alonzo said, speaking up for one of the first times all evening.

"What?" John forgot about his cards for a moment and looked up.

"Sleepjumper's gap. It's what happens when you get back from a run and everything's different from the way it was just a couple of days ago." Alonzo wagged his cards at John. "You did--what, a year and a half once? Tell me, wasn't it weird when you got back to Chicago block?"

John considered that. "I missed my mom's birthday. Twice. Had to get her two presents." He thought of Braxton, acting like they were still back on the stations and should hate all top-levelers, and frowned.

"It gets worse the longer you're away," Alonzo said. "You come back and your baby sister's grown up, your dad's got grey hair, that hot chick used to live on the corner is married."

They all looked at Alonzo in fascination. He never talked about his station life this much, even obliquely. "What do you do for it?" Baines asked.

"The only thing us jumpers knew how to do was go out on another run. 'Course, we'd get back and it was even worse . . . your sister got married and has a kid, dad's dead, hot chick packed on about a hundred pounds. So you just stop going home, because it's not home anymore." His shoulders moved restlessly. "It's not really fixable."

"Well, they're not going anywhere," John commented. "So I guess we just put it on our list of deal-with and move on." He stirred up his pile of markers. "We gonna play poker or what?"


	10. A Day the Sun Rose in the East

A Day the Sun Rose in the East

_Days until Moon Cross: 16_

With a deep sigh that was almost a groan, Julia shut down her datapad and put it away. It had been a long day.

More than that, it had a string of long days. It wasn't just the split shifts, although those were bad enough. It was not having the time to work with the indigenous database, although True and Molly kept bringing her samples. It was facing parents who refused to see the Terrians as anything but alien monsters, and their cure as anything but evil. It was that they'd scanned every last person in town and not one of them had a compulsion chip in their brain, which put them back at square one as far as figuring out who had sabotaged the ship. It was not seeing Alonzo except in passing, and knowing that he was counting down the days until the ship was done and he could leave. It was--hell, it was everything.

She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, watching the lightning flicker behind her lids for a moment before dropping her hands again. Oh, did she need sleep. One last thing and then she could go.

Julia gathered up the bag of fragile purple flowers that True had brought her after dinner. They'd been drying out for a week and now were ready for storage. Crushed and steeped, the petals made a highly effective nausea remedy, one that Bess had used almost daily when her morning sickness had gotten bad. With the amount of meds that most Syndrome children took, antiemitics were in high demand in the hospital, but so far nobody was willing to try grapeweed. Still, Julia stored it away, just in case, along with all the other indigenous remedies that she'd discovered in the past two years.

She opened the cabinet and found, not the familiar hodgepodge of boxes and jars, but a glittering row of perfectly identical plastic containers. She closed the cabinet and stepped back, looking around her. No . . . no, last one on the left . . . this was it. Her cabinet. Or what should be her cabinet.

She opened it again, staring at the station-manufactured pill bottles.

Someone walked by and Julia spun. "Nurse MacDonald."

The head nurse paused. From the looks of it, she was on her way out, too. "Yes, Dr. Heller?" The words were perfectly respectful. The voice gave the tiniest of sardonic twists to the word _Doctor._

Julia's hand drifted up to fiddle with the caduceus pin she always wore on her lapel, a nervous habit that had come back. "I--ah--" _Stop it. You're a doctor._ She gestured to the open cabinet. "Do you know who restocked this cabinet?"

"I did," the head nurse said. She was a tall, solid woman, with a shock of grey hair, who ruled the nurses with an iron hand.

"You did," Julia said. "Okay. Can I ask what you did with the previous contents?"

"I disposed of them."

Julia almost dropped her grapeweed. "You threw them _away?_" Her voice rose sharply, and heads turned all up and down the ward.

MacDonald's pale eyes remained steady and expressionless. "Dr. Vasquez felt they didn't have any place here. They weren't sanitary. Especially the alien saliva."

Her Grendler spit? They'd thrown out her _Grendler spit?_

With an effort, Julia reined herself in. Losing her cool was not going to do her one bit of good, especially with MacDonald. "Why wasn't I notified?"

"Why would you need to be notified? Pharmaceutical stock isn't your job."

"They were my supplies."

"But you know regulations prohibit personal stockpiling. Even indigenous remedies." When Julia couldn't reply, MacDonald's eyes dropped to the bag she clutched. "What's that?"

Julia shoved it in her pocket. "Nothing. Decoration for my desk." She tipped up her chin, daring the head nurse to comment. MacDonald held her gaze for several seconds, then shrugged and turned away.

Julia looked at her cabinet, turned into a clone of all the other ones, all that hard work of gathering and preparation gone as if it had never happened, and wanted to cry.

* * *

Alonzo lay in bed, eyes firmly closed, trying to convince himself to sleep. The other half of the bed was empty--Julia was working late. Again.

He was just drifting off when footsteps sounded out in the corridor. The thin walls meant you could hear people walking up and down the halls all the time. But he knew these footsteps.

Julia eased the door open and closed it very softly behind her. About a minute of cloth rustlings later, she half-climbed, half-collapsed into bed next to him. After a moment, she began to snore, very softly.

He opened his eyes and turned over to look at her. She slept on her stomach, her head twisted awkwardly to one side. It looked like an invitation to a day-long crick in the neck tomorrow, but she was out for the count. He looked over at the laundry crate and saw that Neatnik Julia's pants and shirt lay on the floor next to it. She hadn't even taken the pins out of her hair.

He plucked them out himself, throwing them under the bed where she wouldn't be able to find them, and then nudged her shoulder until she turned onto her side. The shift in position silenced her snores, and she sighed, curling close to him.

He closed his eyes again. _Now_ he could sleep._  
_

* * *

_Days until Moon Cross: 15_

Not enough hours later, a sharp beep-beep-beep dragged him into consciousness. "Ugh," he groaned, opening his eyes to predawn grey. "God. Who's calling at this hour?"

He looked over and saw Julia's gear on her table, blinking brightly. He leaned over her and picked it up, intending to tell whoever it was to call the shank back, but the beeping wasn't the call function. It was the alarm.

"Mmm," she said, shifting. "Urgh. Sorry."

He silenced it. "Go back to sleep, honey. You really need it." When Julia needed an alarm to wake up on time, she was severely deprived.

"Can't," she slurred. "Early rounds." She dragged herself upright and sat on the edge of the bed, her head drooping, for several moments before getting to her feet. "Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

"You worked late last night," he said.

"I know," she yawned, and picked up her clothes to head to the showers.

When she came back, he had the light on and was pulling clean clothes out of his own crate. She stopped in the doorway, pushing her damp hair back from her face. "'Lonzo, I didn't mean for you to get up too."

"I'm awake anyway," he said shortly.

She sighed and looked on her table, in the dish where she usually dropped her hairpins. "God damn it, you hid my pins again."

"Look under the bed," he muttered.

She got down on her hands and knees. Her voice drifted up through the mattress. "I'm sorry my hairstyle offends you, but can you _please_ stop doing that?"

"What's wrong with the way you usually look?" He had no clean socks. Where the hell were all his clean socks?

"That is the way I usually look."

Yes, and he hated it. "I mean before. Where in your job description does it say you have to jab your head full of pins all day?"

"It's about professionalism," she said, halfway under the bed, scrabbling around on the floor for hairpins.

Alonzo scowled at his crate of clothes. Was his turn or hers to do laundry? He couldn't even remember anymore. They'd traded off for months, but with her schedule now at the mercy of senior doctors, the pattern had broken down. "What do the kids care if you look like a beauty queen?"

"_I_ care that I look like a competent doctor!"

"You are a competent doctor! You're a damn good one! Who are you proving it to?"

She flattened herself out to reach for a particularly elusive pin. "Quiet down! It's not even dawn."

"I know, and it was probably midnight when you came in last night. And the night before. And the night before that. This can't go on, Jules!"

She sat up to look at him. "I don't control the duty assignments. If you don't like it, don't sleep with me. I'll see you later." Retrieved pins clutched in one hand, brush in the other, she went out the door.

* * *

Normally, Devon got running-the-town business out of the way in the morning and went on work rotation in the afternoons. She knew most people thought she had it easy, holed up in her office out of the weather, but she'd spent the entire morning working with Morgan on overhauling the rotation schedule so they'd have enough food for the winter. The last thing she wanted was a repeat of their first winter, multiplied two-hundredfold.

When she showed the morning's work to Mazatl and Denner, the two farmers looked at it, then each other, for several moments. Then they looked at her like _New Pacifica Gothic._

"This it?" Denner asked finally.

"Pretty much. I had to split the difference between the farm, the fishery, and the gatherers. And we still need people in Bess's shed."

They studied it a few more minutes. Every so often, Denner would point at something on the pad and say a word or two, like, "stooks," or "bagging." Devon waited, knowing her two most reticent advancers. They'd eventually give her their opinion.

Finally Mazatl shrugged. "We'll work with it," he said, handing the pad back to her.

"Thanks," she said sourly.

He patted her shoulder, his silent gesture of support and appreciation. "Want to help with the stooks?"

She sighed and stowed the datapad. "Can't wait."

She found herself next to Peter Benson, who'd shown signs recently of softening toward the idea of Moon Cross. His five-year-old's health had been pretty compromised by the trip and she'd been using a chair for about a week.

But when Devon said, "So, Pete. Have you and Zack thought some more about--" the look he gave her made the rest of her sentence back up in her throat.

"We're not going to do it," he said.

She considered screaming, but thought, _Diplomacy, diplomacy._ The whole expedition had been a hard sell, even to parents giving up hope. "Why not?" she said as calmly as possible.

"Elizabeth had a nightmare about those things."

Hell, they were back to _things_. Then Devon's ears pricked up, belatedly. "Nightmare?" Were the Terrians trying to contact the Syndrome children directly?

"She dreamed they ate her. She woke up screaming."

Devon slumped. "Look. Pete. I know it's hard--"

"I'm not making her do it," he threw over his shoulder as he stomped off to get more stooks.

* * *

When the afternoon's work ended, Devon walked with the crowd back to town. Most of the parents were avoiding her now, tired of explaining why they didn't want to send their children to the Terrians. Oh well, she thought with determined cheer. At least they weren't complaining.

Someone took her arm, and she looked up. "Oh. Hi, Trent."

"You look tired," he said. "Beautiful. But tired."

"Thanks, I think." Unobtrusively, she detached herself.

"Why do you join the rotations every day? It's too much work. You shouldn't have to do it."

John said almost the same thing. Why did it annoy her so much more, coming from Trent? "What'll I do, hide in my office? I'm a part of this town, too."

"It's menial labor."

Maybe because John never actually used the words _menial labor_, with that slight curl of lip, to refer to the work that kept New Pacifica running. "You bet," she said lightly, "which is why I can't shirk it."

"What would they say back home if they could hear you?"

"I don't really care what they'd say. Richmond sector is not home anymore, this is."

"I think you've been hanging around that drone too much."

She stopped in the middle of the path, people streaming around her and Trent. "I've warned you about using that word," she said. "Several times. John and his daughter are out of debt, and even if he weren't, that's on the stations. We're not on the stations anymore."

She held his gaze until he looked away. "No, we're not, are we?" He brushed at the dirt stains on his knees. From the looks of it, he'd been harvesting vegetables. "I'm going to change clothes before I go see Max." He walked off, toward the dorms.

Devon let out her breath. How was it possible she'd once considered him a friend? His attitude about the work, about the Terrians, about her relationship with John, and virtually everything else about New Pacifica was one of sneering condescension. Had he always been like that, or did G889 just bring it out in him?

Changing clothes sounded tempting, but she dropped by her office and got her datapad instead. Taking it into the gathering space, she found True in one of the booths, hip-to-hip with Molly Ketchum.

It made Devon smile. After about three days of circling around each other, the two girls had bonded like north-south magnets. It made her hope that integration of the two groups was possible for the adults.

The girls were deep in an intense, whispered conversation. "I mean it, True," Molly said as Devon came up.

"I can keep a secret, you know," True said.

"About what?"

Both girls jumped about a foot. "Devon!" True squeaked.

Devon looked down at the datapads in front of the girls. "Are you two doing each other's homework again?"

"Huh?"

Devon frowned. "Didn't Yale warn you about that?"

"We're not doing each other's homework," True said, so indignantly that Devon wondered if she'd been wrong.

Then Molly let out a sigh. "True," she said. "She caught us."

"What? But--"

"Come on," Molly said. "We better do our own homework."

True stared at her friend for a moment, then blinked. "Oh. Okay, okay," she said, and they switched datapads.

So that _had_ been it.

"I don't see what the big deal is," True complained, scowling at her screenful of vocabulary. "I hate vocab and Molly knows the most words of anybody in New Pacifica. It's more efficient this way."

"It's not about efficiency, it's about learning," Devon said absently. Over Molly's shoulder, she could see the slateboard at the end of the room. The words "MOON CROSS" and the number 15 were still the only things written on it. Every morning, she came in here and changed the number, hoping that the next time she did so, there would be a name written under it. Just one. She'd take one.

But every morning, the board remained blank.

She swallowed the defeat, reminding herself that fifteen days was nearly two weeks, and just about anything could happen in two weeks.

True was still complaining. "Why do I need to learn new words anyway? I can talk just fine."

Devon turned away from the board. "True, honey, if nobody ever learned any new words, we would swiftly lose the splendor and the richness of the English language."

True stared at her, unimpressed. "Do _you_ know what 'obviate' means?"

"You're supposed to be looking it up."

"She doesn't," True said to Molly, who looked down at her datapad to hide a smile.

Devon decided it was time for a subject change. "How is school these days?"

True looked away. "S'okay," she mumbled.

Uhoh. She knew that tone. She'd used that tone. "True--are they calling you names again?"

When the girl didn't answer, Devon looked across the table at Molly's face, and that told her everything she needed to know. "Who is it?"

True's chin jutted out, and for a moment, she looked very much like her dad. "I'm not a whiny baby, Devon."

Oh, God. Really, sometimes True was more like her father than was good for anybody. "Honey, it's not whining to--"

"We're handling it," True said firmly.

That sounded highly suspicious. "Handling it how?"

"We have a plan, Ms. Adair," Molly said calmly. "Don't worry about it."

She wondered if she should be bracing for further mayhem. On the other hand, it was sweet little Molly Ketchum. Just how much mayhem could be involved if Molly was in on it? "Okay," she said finally. "Okay. Don't say anything that would incriminate any of us. Just tell me something."

"Dev-on--" True started.

"No, different subject. Sort of. Uly. How is he doing right now?"

The girls traded long looks, then True said cautiously, "In school?"

"In school, in--well--anything." Devon sighed. "He won't talk to me or Yale, or even your dad, but I know he's down about something."

"Well, how should I know?" True said, bending over her vocab with considerably more vigor than she'd shown earlier. "We don't talk either."

"Couldn't you--"

"No," True almost snarled.

"Hey," Devon said. "Watch your tone."

"Sorry," True said, not sounding very sorry at all. "Me and Uly aren't talking, that's all. And I don't feel like trying, either," she added, anticipating the words that were gathering on Devon's tongue.

Molly spoke. "Ms. Adair, I don't mean to be rude or anything. But True and I really have to do our homework now."

Royally dismissed by an eleven-year-old, Devon didn't have much choice but to get to her feet. "Okay. But if you have any thoughts, or--"

"Yeah," True said, concentrating on her homework.

Feeling rejected, and also somewhat ridiculous, Devon found herself a spot in a booth on the other side of the room. When she glanced over, the girls had abandoned their homework and were whispering again.

Yale said, "At that rate, they'll be lucky to get any of it done."

Devon smiled at him, glad that someone was willing to be around her. "They'd switched again," she said.

He raised his eyes to the heavens. "When I assigned them as partners, I thought Molly would be a good influence on her."

Devon looked across the room again. "I think she is," she said thoughtfully. She looked back at Yale. "Did True tell you some kids are calling her a dumb drone again?"

"I have ears," he said. "They've been penalized."

"Was one of them, by chance, Max Sadler?"

"Once, but Uly got after him and I haven't heard it since."

"How about Ryan McNab?"

Yale's brows lifted. "No," he said. "Not that he hasn't called True a great many other things to her face, but he's never used that against her."

"Well, that's something. And it's not as if he's the first juvenile delinquent you've ever had to deal with."

He looked at her with half a smile quirking his mouth. "Did you hear about this morning?"

She looked at her old tutor suspiciously. "Am I going to like it?"

"You may. I caught Ryan trying to smoke grass."

She goggled. "Where did he get pot?"

"No, my dear," he corrected gently. "Not marijuana, _grass_. From the ground."

Five minutes later, her hysterical whoops died away. Yale looked at her quizzically. "Devon, it was funny, but not that funny."

"Sorry," she wheezed, wiping away a few tears that had leaked out. "I just--I needed that." She rubbed her stomach, which actually hurt. "Hoo! It's been a rough day."

"Otherwise known as a day the sun rose in the east?"

"Mmmhm." She propped her chin in her hands. "Do you remember when I was about his age? I was a little--"

"Challenging?"

"That's one way of putting it." She gave him a quick smile, remembering all times this man had bailed her out of jail, tended to her hangovers, and taken her to community service and court dates--none of which had been in his job description. No, Ryan McNab was definitely not the first wild, selfish, thoroughly screwed-up kid that Yale had ever had to deal with. "I was a pain in the ass, Yale."

He smiled at her, refusing to be baited.

"But you loved me, didn't you? No matter what I did, I could never make you stop loving me."

"No," he said simply.

"I don't know if I ever told you--but you're the reason I believe in giving second chances. In having faith in people."

His face softened. "My dear. Thank you." He reached across the table with his human hand and took both of hers. "Thank you," he said again.

She held onto his hand. "I'm trying to have faith," she said. "I'm trying to give these people the chance to understand--to see--to write their child's name on that board behind you. But it's still empty."

"They will," he said. "Somebody will take that leap of faith, some one person. And then another. And another. You may not get two hundred and fifty names on that board by Moon Cross, but there will be names."

"You can't promise me that, Yale."

"No. But I can believe it."

She stared at the empty board.

"Devon," he said, and she looked back at him. "I will admit that there were days when I really had to work at believing that this wild, incorrigible girl, who delighted in breaking every rule she met, would ever grow into a wonderful, generous woman. It seemed impossible. And yet--" he gave her hands a little shake. "Here you are."

She managed to smile, finally. "Yes," she said. "Here I am."


	11. Sessions with Rita

Sessions with Rita

_Days until Moon Cross: 14_

At the shuffling footsteps, Rita looked up from her notes. "Ryan? I was beginning to get concerned." Also exasperated and annoyed, but her training ensured that none of it showed in her voice.

Ryan slouched against her office wall, fully aware he was half an hour late for a forty-five minute session. "I was doing something," he said.

"Oh?"

"Something none of your business."

He was trying to bait her. She didn't rise to it, but nodded and gestured toward the chair opposite her own. "Well, since you're here now, we can get started."

He didn't take it. "Okay." He held up a hand and ticked off statements on his fingers. "I feel sad because my sister is dying. I feel frustrated because my mom is always on my case. I feel angry because my dad bailed on us. I also feel angry because we had to come all the way out here to the edge of nowhere for nothing." He spread his hands wide. "Well, that about does it. Very successful session. Bye-bye."

Rita got to her feet, shifting to block his exit. "Wait. Please. We're not done."

"I think we are."

"Well, I don't," she almost snarled. "So sit."

He sat, with a thud. But a satisfied little smile crossed his face.

She settled herself again. Calm, calm, calm. Don't give him what he wants again. "Do you feel that our sessions are--predictable, Ryan?"

"Predictable?" The sneer was back. "There's practically a script. I could tell you everything you're going to say before you say it. 'I'm sorry you feel that way, Ryan. And why is that, Ryan? Is there something else you would like to talk about, Ryan? I'm full of shit, Ryan.' Am I close?"

She rolled her stylus in between her fingers. "All except for the last part."

"You sure about that?"

"Very sure. You seem especially angry today. Did something happen?"

"You mean besides my mom dragging me away from the stations and all my friends to a dirt ball full of assholes, and it didn't work anyway?" He looked contemptuously out the window. "No, nothing really."

Rita debated within herself, then decided to try it. The session couldn't be much worse than it already was. "The nurses tell me you visited the hospital this morning. To see your sister."

One shoulder jerked up and down. "Yeah, so? My mom's always on my case to visit her."

"At three AM?"

"I couldn't sleep. And she's in a coma again, so it doesn't matter to her."

"They said you started screaming at her."

"I was trying to wake her up."

"You certainly woke everyone else up."

"But not her. So what does it matter?" He checked his gear. "Oh look. Time's up."

Before she could jump up again, he was gone.

Rita let out a long sigh and stared at the empty chair. After a moment, she reached for her datapad and started to write. _A very unsatisfying session. I think--_

"Dr. Rita."

Her head jerked up. "Yes, Ryan? Did you forget something?"

His face was taut. "You want some dirt, don't you? Something to write down on your datapad and make hmmm noises at? Something real meaty?"

She set the pad aside. "I'm here to listen, Ryan. If you need to tell me something--"

"It's good. It's real good. It's about Lynnie. That's what you always wanna know about, right?"

"Your sister's situation has always had an enormous effect on your life--"

"I wish she would die," he snarled. "I wish she would just die and get it over with."

Rita's mouth went dry. "Ryan. Why don't you sit down. We can talk about this--"

"Don't forget to write that down so you can tell my mom all about it."

* * *

After the miserable and frustrating session with Ryan--her last of a long day--Rita couldn't stay in her cubicle. His last-minute admission, flung at her in order to provoke and shock, was a breakthrough of a sort, but not an exciting one. His sister was dying. He knew it, but acceptance didn't come alongside knowledge. When she did die, what would happen to him?

Rita had spent her life counseling children like Ryan, who railed at God or fate or the universe, and she'd never been able to answer the one question they all asked.

_Why?_

Why am I so sick? I never did anything to anybody. Why did my brother die? He was just six years old. Why couldn't we do anything? We gave our patient the best of medical science. Why did my mother kill herself? I still needed her, even if my sister died. Why am I so lacking that my husband turns to other women? I've done everything I could to keep him.

Sometimes Rita wished she hadn't drifted away from the faith of her childhood, which just said, _Because._ It was absurdly comforting. God had a plan, and while it looked horrible from where you were, it must make sense from where He was. Just _because._

But even when she was a child, God was an primitive, outmoded idea, fit only for earth-rezes and ignorant drones. People with so much power over their own world didn't need God any longer.

She made for the databanks in one corner of the gathering space. The stacks of hard drives held station records, VR games, works of literature and poetry, all kinds of escapes. But it wasn't to those that she turned. Instead, she opened the files on G889, pressing her thumb on each icon without bothering to read the whole list. She'd done this so often in the past week she knew exactly where each folder was.

_Records of G889._

_Campsites._

_Month One._

_Snapshots._

Here she paused, looking over her choices. Every day was a little different, but any day in that first month would do. Finally, she chose one at random, and a box popped up.

_Please enter gear ID._

031281, she typed, and fitted the VR attachment into her gear's eyepiece. There was a burst of fuzz as the data downloaded from the main banks, and then she stood at the edge of a cliff.

She jolted backward, then stood still, remembering that she was still in the gathering place in New Pacifica, not on a precipice two thousand miles from the sea.

The sky soared above her, the purest blue she'd ever seen. A few faint wisps of cloud hung high in the atmosphere, but other than that, there was nothing but emptiness. The sun's rays poured down, and the ground bounced it back, so she was surrounded by blazing heat, pressing on every inch of her skin. She took in a breath, and could almost feel her mouth and throat crackle with dryness. The smell and taste of hot dust filled her head.

She took a few tentative steps, grit and pebbles crunching under her shoes. There was a faint rattle, and she looked down in time to see a sinuous body slither away across the hard-packed ground. From the shadows under a wide, flat rock, a lizard looked up at her for a moment with tiny, glittering eyes before it, too, darted away.

She put her hand down on the rock and pulled it away almost at once. Too hot to sit. If she hadn't had shoes on, she would have burned the bottoms of her feet.

She wandered a few steps more, brushing up against a scrawny thornbush almost the same color as the baked ground. A long thorn left a thin, stinging line on her arm. She took another dust-laden breath, holding it until the tension in her neck and back had been baked away by the oven heat.

Several feet away, a tiny rodent zipped across the ground. A snake darted out of the shade and swallowed it within seconds, then disappeared. In this harsh, wild place, there were no feelings, no ambiguities, no shades of grey, no children with broken hearts. Just life and death, separated by the thinnest of lines.

"What are you doing?"

Rita jolted. The words boomed around her, echoing off the cliffs and the canyon like the voice of God. After a moment, she realized that it was only someone outside her VR. After another moment, she realized who it was.

"Alonzo? I'm just exploring."

"The desert?"

"Well--yes."

"Why?"

_Because I needed to,_ she thought, and found herself saying it. "I needed to."

There was a silence, then a flare of blue light and Alonzo appeared next to her. "You needed to come here?"

"I've never been to the desert," she said. "Not a real one."

"This isn't a real one, either. It's VR."

"It's still a better facsimile than the historical records from Earth." She should know. She'd spent hours in those grainy, jerky, static VRs once upon a time, trying to understand where she came from and failing.

Alonzo squinted at her. "Why didn't you go to the mountains?" He jerked his chin at the shadowy humps on the horizon.

"I've been in most of the places you crossed through to get to New Pacifica." Rita looked around, shading her eyes from the blazing sun. "I just had to come here today."

"You keep saying that. You had to. You needed it." He put a hand in his pocket and found a pair of sunshades.

She tilted her head. "Was it really like this?"

He slid them over his eyes. The sun bounced off the flat, dark lenses. "Yeah, of course. We didn't have time to make any of this up."

"Not this desert," she said. "The Sonoran. Was it like this?"

The shielding sunglasses turned in her direction for several silent moments. Rita held her breath.

Alonzo hadn't sought her out since the night of the all-town meeting. She had made a few tentative overtures, which he allowed only so far as she didn't acknowledge their relationship. The instant she referred to the family or to the history he'd been a part of, he shut down and walked away. The Sonoran Desert was a part of him, but maybe it was a part he could speak about comfortably. A step.

"What makes you think I know?" he said finally.

"You _were_ born there," she said. "Not on the stations, not in the Barrio Tucson, but in the real Tucson. On Earth." She was pushing it, Rita knew. She was reminding him that he hadn't always been a sleepjumper, that he'd once had roots that stretched deep into the hot, baked ground.

"I was born in the city," he said. "What was left of it. We didn't live in the open desert."

She let out her breath. "Did you ever go there?"

He started walking, but it wasn't the deliberate getaway stride she'd seen before. He wandered aimlessly, scuffing up puffs of dust that hung for a moment before a hot breeze swept them away.

"No," he said. "Well--I mean. My nana took me a couple of times. When I was little." He looked around. "But it wasn't like this."

Rita looked around too, realizing why she'd wanted to come here. The dried-out scrub, the tough little rodents and lizards and snakes--they all battled the scorching sun and each other for one more breath. It was the most ferociously alive place she'd ever been. "What was the Sonoran Desert like?"

His shoulders moved unevenly. "Dead."

She flinched.

He'd made his way to a patch of what looked like blossoms of tan-green ping-pong paddles with long, pink spines. "What are those?" she asked, to distract herself.

"These?" He glanced down as if surprised.

"Yes."

He shrugged. "We never gave them a name. They were all over, in this place. Just grew wild, anywhere they could take hold." He crouched down and reached between the spines to brush his finger along the wrinkled green skin. "Saved Danziger's life once."

She clasped her hands behind her back. "I've seen records. There was a plant something like them in the Sonoran desert. They were called--prickly pear?"

"Yeah," he said. "I guess they used to grow everywhere. In the backyard, by the side of the road, up against your building. In some places in Tucson, you could still see the dead ones."

"They died out?"

He ran his finger up one of the spines, lightly tapping the wicked point with his fingertip as if daring it to pierce the skin. "Of course not," he said. "They had them on the stations. In museums and DNA banks."

"I meant in the desert. They didn't grow wild anymore?"

"The ground was poisoned," he said. "The rain--what rain we got--was acid."

"Oh."

"My nana had one, in a pot," he said softly. "The soil was treated. She saved part of her weekly water ration for it. Didn't need much, really, but she was old, and we didn't get much. But she wanted to keep one alive. Just one."

"What happened to it?"

He looked at her. "We left it, when we skylifted. After she died. We had to. There was no room." He stood, and his sunshades slid down his nose, revealing his eyes for the first time. He didn't bother to push them up. "Why did you come here?"

She looked around her, at the seeming emptiness that stretched out into a life-filled infinity. "Our family lived in the desert for generations, on both sides of the border. Maybe some part of me remembers this. Maybe some part of me needed to be here, even in VR." She let out a humorless laugh. "Or maybe I'm just being fanciful. Making things up."

"You're not making anything up," he said.

She looked back at him. "Why do you say that?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

She pushed. "Is that the way you felt, when you came here?"

His eyes darkened. Then, without answering, he reached up, touched the side of his head where his gear sat in real life, and disappeared.


	12. Holding On

Holding On

Brenda dropped her voice so it hummed with suspense. "And so, on Halloween night, Janet went to the forest where she had first met Tam Lin. Hiding behind the well, she waited and watched for the elves' procession, her heart in her mouth. When she saw Tam Lin, she leapt from her hiding place and pulled him from his horse."

When Lynnie had been smaller, she'd always jumped in at this point, squealing gleefully, "An' the queen was _mad_, wasn't she, Mama?" But now she lay silent, eyes focused but blue-veined lids drooping. She'd drifted out of her latest coma earlier that day, and Brenda had started telling her favorite story to distract her from her wooziness.

"The queen spun around in a fury. Wind whipped the trees and the horses screamed in terror."

There were little gasps from the rest of her audience. A few other Syndrome children had snuck over, in their chairs or sitting up in bed to listen. Darla was there too, with Angie in her lap. Everybody knew Lynnie's mom told the best stories.

Brenda continued. "The wicked queen began to work her terrible magic. In Janet's arms, her Tam Lin suddenly became--"

She always paused so her children could name horrible animals for Tam Lin to turn into. Ryan loved to say things like _kangaroo _and _buffalo_, things that had most definitely not been around in old Scotland. But Ryan wasn't here. He was off somewhere, and Brenda didn't have the energy to be angry with him for not letting her know his whereabouts.

From behind her, Angie said, "A bear?"

Brenda looked over her shoulder and nodded. "--a bear, huge and smelly, with terrible claws ripping at poor Janet. She wanted to let go, but she held on, for it was the only way to save him. Then he turned into a snake, wrapped around her and squeezing tight until she thought her ribs would break. She wanted to let go, but she held on, for it was the only way to save him."

As she recounted the various animals that poor enchanted Tam Lin was turned into by the furious queen, Brenda watched her daughter's eyes go unfocused. She was falling asleep again. Brenda envied Janet. At least the creatures that Tam Lin had turned into were ones that could be fought, not like this insidious condition that was stealing her daughter away piece by piece.

"Then in her arms, he became a pillar of living fire, and she let out a cry of pain as her skin burned. She thought_, I must hold on, I must hold on_. But then she remembered what Tam Lin had told her. He had said 'When I turn into a pillar of living fire, then you must let go and throw me into the well, lest we both be burned to ash. Then help me out and cover me with a green cloak, and I will at last be free.' At once, she flung the fire into the water. A great gush of steam went up, and when she looked into the well, there was her own beloved Tam Lin once more. She helped him out of the well, dripping wet and not burned at all, and covered him with her green cloak. With one final scream of rage, the elf queen and all her court disappeared, and Tam Lin put his arms around her. 'My Janet,' he said, 'you have freed me.'"

A smile flickered across Lynnie's face just as her lashes settled on her pale cheeks. Brenda checked the machines. She wasn't medically trained, but after so many years, she could tell by the brain and heart monitors that her daughter was asleep, not unconscious. She let out her breath, then remembered that she still had a little bit of the story to tell for the children still awake. "Janet took her Tam Lin home, and they were married. And the evil, greedy elf queen, her power broken by Janet's love and determination, was nevermore seen in the land. The end."

If only it worked that way in real life.

Figuring that another story was unlikely, the children drifted away or laid back down, some giving dutiful thanks. Angie's head drooped against her mother's shoulder, and Darla rose. She paused and said in a low voice, "Bren?"

Brenda looked up, relieved at the excuse to look away from Lynnie's too-thin fingers in hers. "What is it?"

"I'm going to put Angie down, but I need to talk to you. Don't go anywhere, all right?"

"All right." Brenda watched her go, wondering what her friend needed to say.

When Angie was asleep, Darla motioned Brenda to follow her. Brenda gave her daughter's fingers a squeeze and followed her friend to one of the little waiting areas, enclosed in the moving walls. In the open-plan hospital, it offered a vague approximation of privacy.

Darla prowled around the plain wooden chairs, apparently unable to sit. Brenda was too tired to do otherwise. "What is it?" she asked, dropping her head back against the wall. "What's wrong?"

"We're leaving."

Brenda straightened up, suddenly wide awake. "What do you mean, leaving?"

"I mean, when that ship is fixed, Rob and the girls and I are going to be on it."

"What about Angie?"

Darla made two circuits of the waiting area before she answered, somewhat defensively, "She's strong. She bounced so well from the cold sleep, she was walking an hour later. I don't have any worries about the return trip."

"I mean the cure."

Darla let out a scornful noise. "There's no cure here, Brenda. All this fresh air and natural setting that Devon talked about on the stations aren't doing any good."

"You have to give it time," Brenda said, trying to convince herself as much as her friend. "It's only been two weeks."

"And in two more weeks, we'll have lost our only chance of going home." Darla crossed her arms, gripping her elbows. "Devon Adair made all these promises and not one of them came true."

"She never promised it would be instantaneous."

"Isn't that what she's saying now? All we have to do is give them up to those monsters. I didn't sign up for _this._" She swept her hand out, indicating the hard wooden chairs, the unpainted walls, the squat buildings that made up New Pacifica. "By the time we get home, it'll be fifty years since we left. They have to have found a cure by that time."

Brenda rose and went to her friend. "Dar, you knew this was a gamble. Give it a chance."

"I've given it a chance," Darla said. "We're going back home."

"What about Molly? She loves it here. So does Angie."

"It's the novelty, that's all. They doesn't really belong here. None of us belong here." Her eyes drifted over the uneven grass just outside the window, now rippling gently in the wind, then rose to take in the endless expanse of sky. A deep shudder rocked her body. "I hate this place, Brenda." She looked away from the infinite space. "We have to go home."

* * *

Except for a small pool of light near the back, the garage was dark. Devon navigated carefully around patches of deeper darkness on her way back. She didn't know if they were something she would bark her shins on or just tricks of light, but she didn't feel like finding out the hard way. 

"Hey," she said.

John gave a grunt, not looking up from the tiny meter in front of him on the bench. He wore magnifying goggles that made him look like a mad scientist, but Devon didn't feel like laughing.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

She looked at the meter. He was calibrating it--one of the mindless, annoying tasks that he either saved until a slow day, or did when something else was bothering him. Since slow days were virtually unknown in New Pacifica, she said, "I heard you had to be at the hospital today."

"Dialysis machine was on the fritz," he said.

"Oh," she said.

"I hate that place," he muttered after a long silence.

"I know," she said.

Through another long silence, the only sounds were the tiny clicks and buzzes of the meter as he tested it, then went back in and made more adjustments.

"So you haven't talked to Braxton?" she asked.

"No," he said shortly.

"What if you asked Alonzo--"

"_No."_

"Just a thought."

He tested and adjusted, tested and adjusted. It was like pulling teeth.

Suddenly, he slapped the tiny tool down. "Jesus, would it kill you to tell me I'm right on this? You don't even have to believe it."

She let out her breath. He was going to talk. "Like all the times you've blindly supported me when you thought I was dead wrong?" she said.

"She's a kid," he said through his teeth. "She can't deal with this."

"You always wanted it to be her decision," Devon pointed out.

"When she grew up. When she could handle it. When she could understand."

"Who's the one who told me my son understood more about my own death than I was giving him credit for?"

"That was different."

"It looks remarkably the same to me. Look, it took you close to eleven years to tell her the first thing about her mom. Is it going to take another eleven years for you to talk to her about this?"

He shoved the goggles up over his forehead. "What do you want me to say? 'Guess what, baby. I'm sending someone back to the stations to pull the plug on your mom, so they can throw her away like a used Kleenex.'"

She reached out and grabbed his hand tightly. "You know it's not like that. You know it."

Their gazes locked. After a moment, his eyes dropped. "No. It's not like that."

She let go of him and continued, more quietly, "What if she finds out on her own, sometime? Are you prepared for _that _conversation?"

He closed his eyes. "She won't find out. Not until I tell her."

"She has a mind. Give her credit for the ability to use it."

He propped his head in his hands, digging his fingers through his hair in frustration. Devon softened. She knew how hard the initial decision had been for him. But she'd always thought he was making a mistake, not bringing True into it. She said, "At least this way, you could go through it together."

He said flatly, "I'm not putting this on her. All right? I'm just not."

Devon looked at the set of his jaw, the look in his eyes, and mentally threw in the towel. "All right."

He looked at her suspiciously, as if waiting for further arguments. "That mean you agree with me now?"

"It means I disagree but I know when you're dug in."

He made a "hunh," noise, second or third cousin to a laugh. "Dug in. Yep."

"You're so frustrating," she said.

"Yeah, and you're so reasonable yourself."

With the effort at teasing, the tension seeped away. "Dinner's almost over," she said. She indicated the meter. "Are you done with that?"

He looked down at it, gave it one last test, and nodded. "It'll do." He closed it up, put away his tools, and snapped off the light.

She said into the darkness, "Wasn't it easier when all they needed from us was a clean diaper?"

This time the sound was at least a first cousin to a laugh. "Yeah, but these days we get a little more sleep._  
_

* * *

_Days Until Moon Cross: 13_

Rita drew herself up, folding her hands at her waist. "Dr. Heller?"

The other woman turned, acknowledging her presence with a nod. "Dr. Vasquez."

They had an audience of nurses, parents, techs, and other doctors, all of whom were so blatantly disinterested they would probably be able to recite the conversation word for word.

"You're Hari Bakshi's primary physician. Do you think he's fit for a session with me? We were scheduled."

Julia referred to the files on her datapad. "He should be just fine, although if he shows any sign of strain, you'll have to let me know when you bring him back."

"Of course. Thank you." Rita set off for Hari's bed, congratulating herself. Perfectly professional, perfectly courteous. Perfectly not letting little things like adultery affect her work.

Behind her, a medtech let out a low whistle. "Frost_bite_."

Maybe a little too professional.

But damn it, how was she supposed to treat her husband's little side piece? Ex-side piece, she reminded herself. Miguel had given her up.

_I love you_, he'd said that night on the _Virginia_, less than three weeks ago. _I'm sorry. Don't throw twenty-seven years of marriage into the recycler. We'll make it work. You're just so busy all the time. I get lonely. I'll never do it again._

She'd always thought she had a good marriage. Her husband was intelligent, compassionate, a good provider, encouraged her in her own life's work. She'd seen many women who had it much worse. But lately--just since coming to this planet--she'd started to feel as if something was missing, and not just because of her discovery of Miguel's infidelity.

Rita rubbed her temples. Marriage was work, she reminded herself. You didn't get to sign the contract and then coast for the next ten or twenty or thirty years. A relationship took upkeep, especially when both members were under stress. Didn't she know that from countless sessions with worried Syndrome parents who had forgotten to be spouses?

On impulse, she detoured when she saw her husband speaking with a nurse. He glanced at her and held up a finger, then finished giving his directions. When he was done and the nurse had left to do his bidding, he turned to her and said, "Yes, dear?"

"What time do you anticipate signing off tonight?"

He glanced at his watch. "Barring any emergencies? Three hours, perhaps three and a half."

"I should be done by then. Would you like to take a walk?"

He gazed at her blankly. "A walk?"

"I thought perhaps to the beach."

"If you need to speak with me about something, I can take a break--"

"No. Just a walk. Spending time together. I'd like to spend some time with you, Miguel." She tried to remind him, without saying it out loud, that they were trying to repair their marriage.

He must have remembered that salient little fact as well. "Yes, of course. I can do that. This evening, then." He kissed her. "Excuse me, I need to check on Lena Guerrero."

"Yes, of course," she murmured, and watched him go before turning and heading toward Hari Bakshi's bed.

The little boy's parents were with him. His father was telling a grandiose story about his adventures on the water. "It was _this big_!" He held his arms out wide, indicating something closer to a full-grown dolphin than a standard fish.

Hari, knowing full well who had all the common sense in the family, said, "Mama, was it?"

Layla Bakshi laughed. "Your papa is telling tales again. It was little. Itsy." She pinched thumb and forefinger together to demonstrate.

"Your mama doesn't know what she's talking about," Rajiv countered, grinning at her. "It was a champion among fishes. But one day you'll catch one bigger."

Rita paused at the end of Hari's bed, smiling at the family. The parents looked up. "Good evening, Dr. Rita," Layla said.

"Good evening. I hate to interrupt story time," she said lightly. "But I have a date with this handsome young man."

Hari sat up hopefully. "Can we go outside, Dr. Rita?"

She had taken to conducting some sessions outdoors, both for the sake of privacy, hard to obtain in the crowded hospital, and also because the children asked her to. "Well," she said. "I'll let your parents decide."

Hari's big eyes turned to his parents. "Mama . . ."

Layla felt his forehead. "How are you doing? What did the doctor say?"

"Dr. Heller says he's quite fit this evening. We'll take a chair, of course." Which Hari would climb out of the minute he was out of the hospital, but the rules were the rules.

"Please?" Hari wheedled.

Layla and Rajiv exchanged a look, then Layla said, "You take care and tell Dr. Rita if you feel tired."

Hari cheered, and threw back his covers so his father could pick him up and carry him to one of the chairs that clustered near the doors. Once Rajiv settled him in, and Layla had fussed with his headpiece, Hari bounced. "Let's go."

His mother smiled at him. "We'll see you after dinner, darling."

As Rita wheeled Hari away, waiting until they were more private to activate her recorder, she glanced back. His parents stood just outside the doors, looking after them. Rajiv leaned down to say something in his wife's ear, and she touched his arm lightly, in comfort or reassurance, before they both turned toward the dorms.

Layla and Rajiv had gone through a rough patch in their marriage a year before, one so bad they'd thought seriously about dissolving their marriage contract early and taking the penalties. But they had worked it through, both for Hari's sake and because they truly still loved each other. It could be done, Rita thought. If they could do it, so could she.


	13. The Last Two Years Were Just Pretend

The Last Two Years Were Just Pretend

_Days until Moon Cross: 12_

Alonzo knew it was Julia's day off; she'd said so the night before. Then why couldn't he find her?

As a last resort, he tried the hospital. If she really was working on her day off, she was either a bigger workaholic than even he'd ever dreamed, or--

Or she was avoiding him.

But her cubicle was empty, and nobody he asked had seen her. Alonzo sighed, unsure whether to be frustrated or relieved. Of course, this didn't mean she wasn't avoiding him; just that she hadn't retreated here.

He took one last wander through the offices, glancing absently into the cubicles he passed on the off-chance that Julia was talking to another doctor or something. Most of them were empty; a few held doctors bent industriously over datapads. The last one on the end was Rita's. She sat at her desk. No datapad sat in front of her, just her own folded hands. She stared at them as if she didn't know what to do next.

Alonzo stopped, balanced between one step and the next. He knew that look, too well. Not on Rita, but on his own mama.

She and Papi had always paid bills at the kitchen table after he and the boys and Mercedes had gone to bed. Every month, there were six mouths to feed, six bodies to clothe, the rent on a three-bedroom unit to pay--even if Mercy's room wasn't much more than a glorified closet. But before any of that could be attended to, there were six enormous passage debts to chip away at.

More than once Alonzo had come into the kitchen to get a glass of water for Davy or Lito and found his parents staring at the pile of bills, the numbers that always added up red, with that look of blank despair. After going back to his room, he would lay in the darkness, promising himself that when he was grown up, he was going to do something so his parents never had to look like that again.

And he had, but it wasn't the kind of thing you forgot.

He shifted his weight, arguing with himself. _It's none of your business. Walk away._ He obeyed himself, striding off down the corridor. But his footsteps slowed halfway to the door.

She was family, which made it practically an obligation to butt in.

But he barely knew her.

But she was _family. _The first family there'd been for him for five or a hundred years.

He teetered in place, torn. Then he thought, _She listens to everybody. Who listens to her?_

With a deep sigh, closer to a groan, he turned around and went back. "Rita?"

She jolted and looked up. The bright mask slipped over her features in half an instant. "Alonzo. Hello. What can I do for you?"

"Nothing," he said, coming in and dropping into the chair she used for sessions. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"_No estoy tonto. _What is it?"

Her face crumpled, and she turned her head. "Go away."

"No," he said. Then, as if he were talking to six-year-old Mercedes with a skinned knee, he said, "What hurts, baby?"

She sniffed, once, hard. "It's Miguel," she said, so low he could barely hear her.

Alonzo had already noticed they didn't seem to have much to say to each other. "You have a fight or something?"

"He forgot," she said. "About last night."

"Was it your, uh, anniversary or something?"

"No, it was--I just wanted to take a walk. With my husband. I wanted to spend time with my husband. But he forgot."

"Okay," he said, trying to understand why this would bring on that terrible blank look. "So he forgot. He's busy, right?" Everyone was busy, but the doctors were the busiest of everyone with the possible exception of Devon. He should know; he lived with one.

But Rita damn near pinned him to the wall with her glare. "Just because you both have dicks does not mean you get to be on his side."

"Whoa. Whoa." He held up his hands. "I didn't say anything about either of our dicks. I'm on your side. I just don't--why is this bad?"

"He forgot," she said again. "He said he got caught up, and he forgot, and he just went back to our rooms afterward. But I was--Where was Julia last night?"

"Huh?" It was a conversation of curveballs, and Alonzo was still two or three behind. "Why?"

"Was he was with her?" She didn't even sound like she knew she was saying it aloud. "He said it was over, but this is exactly what happened last time. He forgot things and he got caught up and how _dumb_ does he think I am?"

"Last time?" Alonzo's voice rose. "What last time? What's over? What does Julia have to do with your husband forgetting to take a walk with you?"

"What do you think?" Rita said bitterly.

And unfortunately, Alonzo had finally caught up.

* * *

The laundry basket pulled at Julia's arms, a pleasant strain after a morning's worth of heavy lifting in the sauna of the laundry room. She'd done laundry today because her schedule had stuck Alonzo with the chore for the past month.

She took her time over the folding, enjoying the clean smell of the clothes and the sun falling in through the window. She examined a seam, decided it would last another few wearings, and gave the shirt a businesslike shake before folding it. The cloth slid against her skin with the softness of thousands of wearings. She smoothed it down, tugging a button to make sure it didn't need to be re-sewn. It didn't.

What did it say, she thought ruefully, that the best half-hour she'd had in quite awhile was folding laundry by herself?

But there were no patients or parents here. No Miguel. No Alonzo. No Devon. Nobody wanted anything from her right at this moment. Even the clothes were content to go quietly in a pile, destined for her crate.

She had morning shift, she remembered. Six AM to ten, then again at night, 6 PM to ten. Ugh. The shit shift, True called it, imitating her dad. Julia had given up trying to stop her, and started calling it that too.

She concentrated on the long, free afternoon in front of her. Maybe Bess or Devon would have a drink with her after dinner. Since neither of them could drink alcohol yet--Devon because her liver was still too damaged from the viral infection the year before, Bess because of the baby--Julia knew she had the option of getting shit-faced if she wanted.

She thought, _I'll have to come up with some excuse not to be around Alonzo_, and sighed again.

She concentrated on the socks.

The door opened. "Hi," she said, trying not to resent the loss of her solitude.

"Hey," Alonzo said. His voice sounded funny. His expression looked strange too--he studied her as if he'd never seen her before.

She looked at her pile of socks. Suddenly, there was a heavy feeling in her stomach. "Did you know," she said, trying to make her voice light, "that between the two of us, we have three pairs of matching socks? And my definition of _matching_ is pretty loose right now."

He said, "Did you sleep with Miguel Vasquez?"

Her hands froze in the middle of folding the last pair of socks together. She took a breath, finished the action, and set them on her stack of clothes. "Not recently."

He let out his breath and sagged against the door jamb. "But . . . sometime not recently, you did," he said.

"Before we left the stations. It's over." She picked up the stack of her own clothes and turned to deposit them in her crate.

"That's it? That's all you're going to say about it? It's over?"

Julia felt her shoulders hunch and straightened them. "I don't know what else you want to hear about it."

"Why _didn't_ I hear about it?"

Anger started bubbling up in her stomach, a slow lava boil. "Why would I tell you?"

"Maybe it's something I would want to hear. Something I should know."

She got to her feet, spinning to face him. "Oh, now you want to hear about something before you, Alonzo?"

His eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean there's only ever been one rule with us and that's don't ask, don't tell!"

"When did I ever say that?"

"The past is gone and the future's not here yet, so why worry about either of them?" she said. "Don't you recognize that?" Without waiting for an answer, she went on. "You said it to me. Before our first winter. When I asked you something, in passing, about your childhood. You said it didn't matter anymore. If your past doesn't matter, why should mine?"

"Because he's _here!_" Alonzo shouted back. "He's here, now, today, and you didn't think I'd want to know?"

"Rita's here, too!"

He went white and still. "What do you know about Rita?"

"Nothing," she said bitterly. "I don't know anything, because you haven't bothered to tell me."

"H-how do you know there's anything to tell?"

"How dumb do you think I am? It's obvious to everyone that she's special to you."

He opened his mouth. Closed it again. He looked down at the floor, shoved his hands in his pockets, and finally said, "I can't--about her. I can't talk about it."

She thought, _I don't care if you loved her, I don't care if losing her was the worst thing that ever happened to you, if you would only tell me. If you'd only share that little piece of yourself._

But he stayed silent, still staring at the beat-up toes of his boots.

She took in a breath, held it, and when she let it out she knew what she was going to do.

"You're right," she said.

He looked up, amazed and maybe a little afraid. "I am?"

"Maybe now is all we have, and nothing else does matter. But--" She stopped, her breath shuddering in and out of her as if it would break her ribs. "I can't do this anymore."

He didn't waste any time pretending not to know what she meant. "No--wait--"

"I think," she said with brutal gentleness, "that right now is the time to just--end this." She knelt down, picked up her crate of clothing, and set it on the bed. Then she picked up a few things from the bedside table--her gear, a badly carved duck that Uly had made, a string bracelet from Bess's shed, and other scraps and pieces--and put them on top of her pants and shirts. Then she snapped the lid shut and hoisted it in her arms.

He still stood by the door, where he'd been throughout the argument. Now he moved to intercept her. "Jules, it's only two more weeks. Don't do it like this--"

"Like what?" she asked him. "What's the difference? That I'm leaving instead of you?"

His hands fell away from the front of the box. "Please--" he said.

"No," she said, and pushed past him, through the still-open door, with her whole life in her hands.

* * *

Julia didn't know how she got from her own front door to Devon's office, but the next thing she knew, she found herself staring at a fat knothole.

Even through the door, she could hear the exasperation in Devon's voice. "Bess, I know this is frustrating for you, but it's hardly--"

"Frustrating? All my green wool's gone and disappeared for the third time in the past coupla weeks."

"Don't you have plenty more, in other colors?"

After a moment, Julia realized that in order for the door to open, she had to knock. She put the box down to do so.

Bess's voice got louder, as if she were moving toward the door. "Of course I do, but it is the principle of the--" The door opened and Bess stopped dead, mid-ramble. "Julia?"

"Hi," Julia said.

Bess's eyes fell to the box at Julia's feet. Then they lifted to her face again. "Oh," she said, then, "oh."

"What is it?" Devon said, getting up and coming around her desk.

"My god, Devon, are you blind?" Bess said. She reached out and put her arm around Julia's shoulders. "Honey, c'mere. C'mere."

Julia almost tripped over the box, obeying, but it didn't register. She said numbly, as Bess led her to a chair, "I left. I couldn't anymore and I left."

Devon said, "I'll call Marcia and Danielle," and put her gear on.

Julia said, "He found out about Miguel and he got angry and he didn't have any _right_."

"'Course not," Bess said, but she mouthed to Devon, _Miguel?!_

Devon mouthed back, _Later_, and said into the gear, "It's Julia. She's left Alonzo. Mhm. Bring the cider."

This roused Julia, slightly. "You're not supposed to have alcohol," she scolded. "Either of you. Doctor's orders."

Devon folded her eyepiece back for a moment in between calls and said, "Sweetie, we know. It's for you."

"Oh," Julia said. Then she put her head down on her knees and sobbed.

* * *

Soundtrack Note - What else? "Goodbye to You" by Michelle Branch 


	14. Love and Memory

Love and Memory

_Days until Moon Cross: 11_

Devon paused as she saw a familiar form hunched over the desk. "Julia, there you are. Why aren't you answering?"

The younger woman looked up from her datapad. "Sorry," she said, not sounding very. "I got involved."

Her gear lay on her desktop, its message light blinking wildly. Next to it stood a chunky mug, still about half full of what looked like tasselhead tea. It was probably one of the better remedies to the common hangover that humans would ever discover or create. Unfortunately, it smelled and tasted like goat droppings.

Devon came into her cubicle. "Wasn't your shift done with an hour ago? After the amount you drank last night, I think the last thing you'd want to do is stare at a datapad."

"Yes, mama," Julia said cuttingly, "but this is one of your projects." She jabbed her stylus at Devon's chest. "Riddle me this, Sherlock. Why would anyone commit suicide and mass murder without a compulsion chip in their head?"

Devon thought about pointing out that Julia was mangling her obscure references, and also that human history was jam-packed with people who had committed both suicide and mass murder, often together, without anything like a compulsion chip near their brains. But either might get her own head taken off. So she said instead, "Julia, I asked you to put it away. I've got Morgan cleaning up the hard drive on the ship's black box."

"I can't," Julia said. "I feel like I'm missing something."

"Maybe what you're missing is that there's nothing there to see."

"That's it? After one little setback, the great Devon Adair is throwing in the towel?"

"I'm throwing in nothing," Devon snapped back. "I'm concentrating on other, more promising avenues of investigation. And I didn't come here to fight, I came to see how you were doing. Now dial down the bitch."

Julia winced, and Devon realized how loud her voice had gotten. They both said, "Sorry," at the same time.

"Sorry," Julia said again. "I--oh, damn." She let out her breath in a whoosh, and took a gulp of her tea. She made a face, which Devon could sympathize with. The stuff was more disgusting cold than hot, if that was possible.

"How _are_ you doing?" Devon asked.

Julia moved her shoulders in an uneven shrug that looked uncannily like one of Alonzo's signature gestures. "Now that the anesthesia has worn off, it's starting to hurt." She pressed her fingers to her eyes. "A lot."

"Have you changed your mind?" At the sharp look Julia threw her, Devon held up her hands in a peaceable gesture. "Just a question."

"No," Julia said, sadly but definitely. "I haven't changed my mind." She got up, taking a few restless steps around her cubicle. "I know this was a surprise to everybody--"

"Not so much," Devon murmured, but the younger woman missed it.

"--but it had gotten to the point where--" She stopped by her window and looked out to where the mountains sat in the distance, capped with lacy clouds. After a moment, she began to speak again, her voice cool and clinical, as if she were reciting from a medical textbook. "When the tissue begins to die, you need to remove the affected area before it spreads."

"That's something the holos never show," Devon commented lightly. "Love as gangrene."

Julia managed a smile, which looked like her first of the day. "The treatment's already working," she said. "It hurts, but I also feel--oh--relieved, I guess." She gestured at her gear. "After calling several times, he came by. Maybe he thought I'd come to my senses or something. He left after Danziger came in and offered to beat him up for me."

Devon raised a brow. "Oh, did he."

Julia threw her another crooked smile. "I didn't take him up on it. But it was sweet, in a Cro-Magnon sort of way. I thought the men would stick together."

"Don't make this a war of the sexes. You're not the only one who's hurt and upset that he's leaving us."

Julia paused and looked over her shoulder. "No," she said. "I'm not, am I?" She looked back out at the mountains. "It's not because he's leaving," she said to the view. "Or, I mean, it is, but--" She chewed her lip. "When you were first with Danziger, before you knew he was staying, did you ever feel like a--a stopping point? A way to pass the time?"

"No," Devon said. "Never. Did you?"

"Often," Julia said. "It's not as heartless as I'm making it sound. He did care about me. Does care about me. But not enough."

For a moment, there was silence in the little cubicle. The varied sounds of the hospital could have been happening miles away. Then Julia shook herself, visibly, and went to her desk. "About these scans," she said. "I really don't think I'm done. I want to study them more closely."

Devon pressed her lips together. "Julia--"

"I know you think I'm trying to distract myself," the doctor said, "but something's off here."

It sounded like the truth. Devon reached out a hand and picked up the datapad. It all looked like a tangle of wires and grey putty, but she knew that Julia could read it like Devon herself could read a crowd. She handed it back. "Just don't run yourself into the ground," she said quietly.

* * *

Uly took advantage of the midmorning recess break to run down to John's garage. He had privileges, and he wanted to see if there were any interesting pieces in the junk box that he could use for his mom's megaphone.

He expected it to be empty--everyone was down at the ship, fixing it. But when he walked in, he heard a steady, mumbled stream of words. Something told him they were cusses.

"H'lo?"

The swearing stopped.

Uly stood uncertainly in the doorway. "Who's there?"

Silence. But it wasn't the silence of nothing making noise, it was the silence of someone being quiet, which was different.

It had come from over there. Uly padded along the wooden floorboards, already smeared and spotted with grease and oil. He peered around the corner of the Transrover. Nobody. Nothing.

He frowned. He walked all the way around the dead hulk of the vehicle, but there was nothing. He looked under it. Then he climbed up the wheel and looked in. "Ryan?"

"Caught me," the other boy said with a sneer.

"What're you doing?" Uly asked.

"Nothing."

Ryan McNab's nothings tended to be a lot of something. Uly had heard it all back on the stations. Mom said he was acting out, whatever that meant, and that Uly shouldn't imitate him, but should remember that blah blah blah. Uly tended to lose track of the conversation after hearing what the latest was.

But Molly had told him that Ryan was really okay, when he forgot to be a butthead. She said he'd taught her everything she knew about computers. That must have taken forever, because Molly could make computers sit up and dance the Funky Chicken.

Remembering that, Uly climbed the rest of the way into the Transrover's bed. "Are you skipping school?"

"So what if I am? You are."

"It's recess."

"Oh, recess," Ryan mocked. "Go play with your friends, freak. Wait, I forgot, you don't have any."

It was too close to true for Uly to find a good comeback. He looked away, his cheeks burning, and saw the yarn. "Hey! Did you take that from Bess's shed? She's gonna take your head off. What're you doing with it?"

"I'm crocheting a noose." Ryan shifted in front of something. "Go away."

Uly leaned around him and saw what looked like a pile of cloth with sticks tangled in it. "What is that?"

"Isn't recess almost over?"

Now that he looked at it, he recognized one of the portable backstrap looms that they'd all used before Bess's shed got built. "Is that a blanket?"

Ryan sagged. "So what if it is?"

Uly reached out to finger one of the edges. Down near the bottom, it was full of gaping holes and puckered bunches. Up near the top, the weave got a little better, but not much. "Why's it all green?"

"I like green."

"Maybe you should put some yellow in it," he suggested.

"Maybe you should shut your face."

Uly glared up at him. He'd just made a suggestion, he hadn't said anything about how lumpy and ugly it was. "Why're you so mean?"

Ryan slumped down against the wall. "You want an alphabetical list?"

All the mean had melted away, and now the older boy just looked kind of sad and hopeless. Uly wondered how many things would be on that list that came before _L._

He sat down next to Ryan and looked at the blanket again. "You don't have to steal the yarn," he suggested meekly. "Bess would give it to you if she knew you were making this."

Ryan flexed his hands a few times, making fists and then spreading them wide, as if they were sore or had gone to sleep. "You gonna tell her?"

Uly thought about that. "I don't know."

"What about school?"

"They're used to you skipping," Uly said.

"Just living down to expectations." Ryan scooted his butt closer to the loom and tied the wide strap around his waist. The other end was anchored to one of the Rover's I-beams. With some repositioning, the cloth hung taut and suspended, and he got back to work.

Knowing a brush-off when it hit him in the face, Uly got up. But he couldn't resist one last question. "Is it for Lynnie?"

Ryan's hands didn't falter. "What do you think?"

Uly was about to slide his butt down the tire when Ryan said abruptly, "Can they fix her when she's this bad? Those Terrian buddies of yours?"

Uly opened his mouth, then closed it. Lynnie hadn't woken up for the past four days. All the doctors looked at her sadly, shaking their heads. All the nurses handled her like glass when they had to bathe her or change her sheets. Uly had seen enough Syndrome kids die to know that Lynnie was closing in on the last few days of her life.

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe she'd just--you know. In the ground."

Ryan nodded. Uly thought that was it, and in fact he was walking away from the Transrover when the other boy's last words floated to him.

"It would be better than being in there."

* * *

_Days until Moon Cross: 10_

Julia had stared at the brain scans until she was cross-eyed. She was no neurologist, but you didn't have to be one to see a shadow the size of that compulsion chip. She'd taken more than twenty scans with doubtful areas to a staff neurologist in the past two days, and while he found minor tumors and tiny bleeds and similar, easily correctable defects, he saw no chip either. He finally said, "Dr. Heller, I do have my _own_ work to do."

She thought, _This is your work,_ but bit it back, since Dr. Krantz was one of her few almost-allies on staff and she wasn't about to risk that.

She went back and stared at her datapad. She knew she was missing something. She knew it.

Of course, Don Quixote knew he was charging giants, too, when galloping off toward the windmills.

She leaned back in her chair and looked at the ceiling. She remembered shingling the roofs; a miserable job that involved hot tar and nails. It had also meant burns and splinters and bashed thumbs. Her medikit hadn't left her back for three weeks. At one point, she'd had to bandage Morgan's fingers while perched fifteen feet off the ground on a half-shingled roof, trying to figure out how a grown man managed to stick his entire hand in a bucket of tar, the summer sun blazing down on them both.

Julia smiled at the memory.

Now it seemed as if her whole world had narrowed down to this one building--white lab coats and medical smells. Sick children. Worried parents. Brain scans.

_Looking at it too narrowly _she thought, staring up into the shadowy corners. _Looking at just one thing. _

She went back to the scans, trying to look at the whole thing this time. She spent an hour at it, and had settled into a mindless rhythm when something went, _hold up_ in her head.

She flipped back one, to the scan she'd just read. She looked at the whole thing, trying to understand what had set off that little alarm bell. She found it down at the bottom. Not in the scan itself, in the biographical info.

"That's strange," she said softly.

She hit a button or two, and the scan took on the third dimension, hovering in the air. She stared at it, into it. She used her stylus to turn it around a time or two, then to open it up near the frontal lobe. She stared hard at the myelin sheaths. She got a measurement, muttered, "Neurodegenerative? Adrenoleukodystrophy? But it would have presented at least five years ago." Then she looked at the parietal and temporal lobes, gauging their development.

"That's definitely not right," she said, and put on her gear to make a call. "Dr. Krantz? I know you're off-duty--just one. I can send you the image over gear. It won't take a minute. I need you to glance at it and confirm my thoughts." She wi-fi'd her datapad to gear and ordered it to send. "Can you tell the age of that child? Yes, the biography does say it, but I want a second opinion." She listened. "Eleven? No more than twelve." Her eyes went again to the biography at the bottom. "Thanks," she said quietly. "Thanks a lot."

She signed off, staring fascinated at the brain that gently twirled in the air. Perfectly normal. Perfectly _ab_normal.

How had they missed this?

Simple answer. Over a thousand brain scans to look at, and only ordered to look _for _one thing. They'd picked up other abnormalities, but not this one, because it was so comprehensive that without that one piece of information, it looked normal. Hadn't she fallen into the bad habit herself of only looking at a bundle of nerves and grey matter, and forgetting that it belonged to a human being?

She navigated away from the brain scan and spent some time reading the history, noting the date of his last brain scan on the stations and comparing it to his birth date. Just after his eleventh birthday, she thought.

She picked up her gear and had to use the directory to find the number she wanted. She dialed, remembering the time when she'd had everyone on speed dial and only had to say their name to get them on the line, unless Danziger had deliberately forgotten to wear his gear again. And in that case, all you really had to do was call Devon or True, and he'd get an earful.

"Mrs. McNab? It's Dr. Heller, from the hospital. We'd like to do another brain scan on Ryan. Can you bring him in? Now, if possible." She listened, and her hand tightened around the stylus until the plastic creaked in protest. "You don't? Yes. Yes, it is somewhat urgent. Stay where you are. I'll help you look."

* * *

When she couldn't find him at dinner, Devon went looking for Uly. He'd taken to holing up lately, unwilling to walk through town with eyes on him all the time. She didn't blame him. Every time she saw the suspicious looks, as if he might suddenly go alien-berserk and rampage through New Pacifica, she wanted to take John's advice and kick them all over Singh Point.

He wasn't in Bess's shed, or John's garage, or even the barn. Devon sighed and leaned on the door of the stall. The mare stuck her head out and lipped Devon's fingers, hoping for an apple.

Devon smiled and knuckled the mare's forelock. She wondered if any of the colonists ever thought about the fact that the Earth horses and cows and chickens cheerfully ate indigenous feed and shared their barn with G889 species without complaint.

The ones that had survived.

A chill shot down her spine, and she took her hand away to rub her upper arms. The mare made a discontented noise--no apple!--and withdrew her head.

She tried Uly's gear again. After several rings, it kicked over to messaging. "Baby, it's Mom. Where are you? Call me. I've got my gear."

She just hoped he had _his._

She called John, True, and all the advancers, plus Trent and the Ketchums. Except for Julia, everyone told her he wasn't to be found. Julia didn't answer her gear.

"Word is Ryan's off somewhere too," Morgan suggested. "Maybe they're together."

"Doubtful," Devon said, but called Ryan.

After several rings, Ryan's face appeared, but with the pre-recorded look of a mailbox message. "I'm not answering. Fuck off."

Uly's fine, he's fine, he's fine, he's just taken off somewhere and oh is he ever grounded when you find out that he's _fine._

Her gear rang, and she snatched at it. "Uly?"

But it was True's face that appeared. "Devon?"

"Hi, honey. What is it?"

"I found Uly."

All her breath left her in a whoosh. "Where is he?"

"Your room."

Devon frowned. Uly rarely went to their rooms when he could be somewhere he wasn't supposed to be. "Tell him he's in trouble. No, put him on the line."

"Um--I can't, exactly."

"What do you mean, you can't?" For the first time, Devon took a good look at True's face. It was pinched and pale, frightened-looking in the mechanical light of the gear camera. "True, is he okay?"

"No," True said in a small voice.

"Is he hurt? Did he hurt himself?"

"No, he's--I think he's sick, Devon."

Devon's blood iced over. "Stay there," she said through stiff lips. "Don't move."

She tried to strike a balance between a walk and a run, and ended up with a hiccuppy mix of both. _Don't overreact, don't overreact,_ she told herself. He'd had colds and fevers since the Terrians had healed him--piddling, one-day or half-day events that still sent her panic button into overdrive.

But True had looked so scared--

The door to her rooms opened even as Devon reached for the handle. True said, "He's in your bed."

"My bed?" Her stomach sank further. Back on the stations, he would crawl into her bed when he felt worst. She went over and knelt down by him. "Uly, it's Mom."

He opened his eyes, the whites flashing briefly in the dimness before he closed them again. "Hi."

"Hi, baby," she said softly. "What's the matter?" She reached up for the reading light above her cot, to get a good look at him.

"Nnngh!"

She stared at her son. He was buried under the bedclothes, his arms wrapped around his eyes as if the sixty-watt lumalight was the direct heat of the noonday sun. "Uly?" she said.

"He did that before," True said from behind her. "I turned on the light too."

"It's _bright_," Uly said. "My head hurts."

"Sorry," she said, and switched it off so the only illumination was the diffuse lumalight on the far wall. "Is that better?"

He emerged cautiously, his hair sticking straight up, but still rolled over to avoid the light. She laid the backs of her fingers against his forehead. "You don't have a fever," she said. "What's wrong?"

"My head hurts," he moaned. "And my hands feel funny."

Her stomach clenched. "Funny how?"

"Like they fell asleep. But they're not waking up." He tried to pull the blankets around himself again, but his fingers fumbled and tangled in the cloth. He burrowed in like a mole. "Did I miss dinner?"

"Yes," she said absently, thinking, _This is impossible. Julia vaccinated him. Everybody. This is impossible._ "Are you hungry?"

His head moved on the pillow. "Nuh. Mama, you 'member those sheets you used to have?" He didn't seem to know True was there.

"Which ones?" He hadn't called her Mama in years. Years and years. . .

"The slippy red ones."

She'd bought red satin sheets for her twenty-first birthday. They'd gone from special overnight-guest sheets to the ones her dying son liked best--

"They were soft," he said drowsily. "They had ribbons. I used to pick on them. They ripped off, you remember?"

"They did?"

"They ripped right off cuz I was pulling. I was bored and I just kept pulling and pulling and they ripped right off." Suddenly his face crumpled. "Ow--ow--owowow."

She reached out instinctively, and he buried his face in her neck, whimpering with pain. "Shhhh," she breathed into his hair, smoothing it down. "It's okay, just ride it out, sweetie. I'm here."

His breath hiccupped against her skin. "_It hurts._"

"I know. I know. Shhshh."

Eons later, his breathing eased and he relaxed against her, and she knew that the pain was gone. For the moment. She held him for a little while longer, then eased him back down on the bed. "I'm going to call Julia," she said. "She's going to fix you, honey. I'll be right outside."

"'Kay," he whispered.

When she stood and turned, True was there, now ghost-white. "Was I right? Is it--that--"

"I need to call Julia," Devon said, and nudged True out into the corridor ahead of her.

The girl persisted. "It's that thing, isn't it? That virus my dad had that one time. You remember? When Wentworth and Fierstein died?"

"Julia is going to fix this," Devon said. Her fingers trembled as she speed-dialed Julia. The line was busy. Devon left a message, listening to her voice shake and unable to do anything about it.

True said, "Devon?"

"What?"

"It's going to be okay, isn't it?"

Devon stared down into her face, round and solemn and scared. "Yes," she said, knowing the words came a hair too late for believability. "Yes, of course."

True's face twisted. "Don't treat me like a _baby_," she said, and stalked off down the corridor. Devon watched her go, thinking, _Isn't that what she wanted to hear?_

She called John next.

"Julia's trying to get hold of you," he said the minute he saw her face.

"I'm trying to find her," she said.

He focused. "What is it? Uly still missing?"

"No, he was in our room. True found him. John, he's sick. He's really sick." She took a deep breath. "This is going to sound crazy, but True and I--we think it's the same virus that--"

"--killed Wentworth and Fierstein?"

She almost swallowed her tongue. "How did you know?"

His sigh gusted over the line. "That's why Julia needs you. She found Ryan McNab ten minutes ago. He's got it too."


	15. Plague Town

Plague Town

Devon only had one question for Julia. "How?"

Julia stared through the gear channel at Uly. She'd lifted the basic vitals from his gear--heartbeat, blood pressure, temperature, some brain wave measurements--and the boy was holding steady. But he was definitely sick. "I don't know, Devon," she said. "Are you sure--?"

"He started talking about some sheets of mine that he ruined when he was younger."

"Children have much more vivid and selective memories--"

"_He was three."_

All right, then. "I'll send somebody over for a blood sample as soon as I can. We'll figure this out."

"You're not coming yourself?"

"I know you're worried, but right now my priority has to be the Syndrome children. We need to test them immediately and put them all in quarantine." Devon opened her mouth, and Julia cut her off. "Uly has the resources to fight this. They don't."

The other woman pressed her lips together. "What about the vaccine?" She knew Julia no longer had the raw materials, though not why.

"I took some blood from Danziger and Baines and it's running through the analyzers now. I should have the chemical structure soon." The challenge, of course, would be getting the station-origin synthesizers to reconstruct the indigenous organic compounds. But Julia didn't add that. It was hardly what Devon needed to hear at the moment.

Half an hour later, she'd tested every advancer except Devon for the virus. None of them had it, and furthermore, all of them had adequate levels of the vaccine in their blood streams.

_Just Uly,_ she thought, downloading the DNA profile into blood-testing gloves. _Why?_

She looked up, taking a quick breath. "Can you help me? I need you to test the medical staff."

Walman, who was closest to her, reached out for a blood-testing glove without a word.

True said, "Me, too," and when both her father and Julia protested, she turned a mulish face to them and said, "I want to help."

Julia did succeed in sending Bess away, flatly refusing to expose her unborn child to the virus. Bess looked frustrated, but went when Morgan begged her.

She hadn't expected Alonzo to help. They hadn't spoken since she'd left their room the night before. But he picked up a glove without hesitation. "How does this thing work anyway?" he asked her.

She showed him the simple mechanism, the light that flashed green for clean and red for infected. She could feel the weight of many eyes on them.

When he made to turn away, she said, "Alonzo. Thank you."

He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "You need me. I'm not about to bail when you need me."

She thought, _If only that were true._

As they tested the staff from the hospital and sent the clean ones back in, off-duty staff came trickling in, sleepy and annoyed. Both drowsiness and annoyance lifted somewhat when they heard the details, and soon the advancers were surrounded by people waiting to be tested. The few doctors she'd been able to rouse were incredulous and insisted on waiting for Miguel, although Dr. Krantz asked to see her records of the virus from the last time.

Miguel showed up about ten minutes later. "Julia," he said sharply. "What's all this?"

McDonald was on his heels. Unlike him, she looked around, her sharp eyes sweeping across the milling, whispering nurses and techs.

Julia held up one finger and finished giving her instructions to the nurses going back inside. When she was done, she turned. "Miguel, I need you to call all the doctors and alert them to a possible epidemic. I also need--"

"Are those non-medical personnel administering blood tests?" McDonald asked, her voice betraying nothing more than mild curiosity.

"Yes," Julia said absently. "I need Baxter, Collins, Argwal--"

Miguel sputtered, "You set non-medical--"

"I had to, they're vaccinated. Argwal, Chang, Krantz--"

"On what authority?"

She stopped short. "The authority of the doctor on duty," she said. "Ryan McNab and Uly Adair have both come down with a viral infection which--"

"You called out all staff for a viral infection?"

"It's--"

"Go back to bed!" he roared at the line of nurses. They turned sleepy, uncomprehending faces from Julia to Miguel and back again. The advancers looked only at Julia. She nodded, and Danziger reached for the next person in line.

"Didn't you hear me? Go back to bed!"

A few people made to turn back to the dormitories, but Julia snarled, "_Don't go anywhere!"_

Someone had turned on the lumalights around the square. The salt-smelling night breeze set them swinging, making shadows dance nightmarishly.

Miguel took a step toward her, looming in the uncertain light. "You're a year out of medical school and you think you can diagnose an epidemic, call out all the nurses and doctors on a whim, and incite panic for no good reason? Dr. Heller, you'll be lucky if you can so much as pick up a band-aid after this!"

Julia almost didn't recognize her own voice, it was so cold and hard. "Dr. Vasquez. You may be the expert on the Syndrome, but as far as this planet is concerned, I am the shankin' senior physician, and I will not allow you to let people die because your sense of hierarchy is offended!" She discovered she was screaming, and stopped to draw breath and force her voice into steadiness. "Now this is a highly contagious neurological virus, one which killed at least five members of the advance crew, one which most certainly isn't programmed into the sterilizers or immunosuits."

Julia found that she was surrounded by the advancers, grouped protectively around and behind her. Their shadows spilled long and dark over Miguel, McDonald, and the line of nurses. It gave her courage, and she said coldly, "If you're not going to use your authority to make a general emergency announcement, then I will personally go knocking on doors until the situation has been explained to everybody in New Pacifica."

He stared at her for several seconds, then looked away. He said, "McDonald. Tell your nurses to go back to bed."

Julia's breath trickled out of her in a long, defeated exhale. Without the nurses, she was screwed. New Pacifica was screwed. The techs would follow the nurses, and all she would have in these critical first hours would be her advancers, who as willing as they were, weren't medically trained and only had two hands each--

McDonald stepped forward and held out her hand, palm up.

Julia stared at it blankly.

McDonald said, "Dr. Heller? The blood test, please."

Her body reacted before her mind caught up. She took McDonald's hand, pricked the pad of her index finger, and turned her hand over to read the display. "You're clean," she said.

"Good," McDonald returned. "We have a lot of work to do." She stepped away slightly, putting her hands on her stocky hips. "All right, people, this is a full quarantine situation. Anyone who's tested clean, in there, on the double. The rest of you, get tested. _Now._"

All the nurses who'd been hovering, uncertain, took off like loosed greyhounds. McDonald followed them. As she passed Julia, she murmured, so low that Julia could barely hear, "What took you so long, doctor?"

Miguel stood, still in the wavering shadows, looking about as stunned as Julia felt. She'd always thought that McDonald was slavishly devoted to her boss. Now it looked as if the head nurse had made up her own mind, thank you very much.

Miguel said, in a voice that tried to be as firm as it had been before, but came out oddly hollow, "Dr. Heller--"

She said, "If you want my data on this disease, it's available. It always has been. I've seen this before. It's nasty, and worse, unpredictable. We need to stem it now, and for that we need every doctor in town."

He looked away first. "I want to examine the McNab boy."

"By all means. But make the call first."

Reluctantly, he reached up and flipped his eyepiece around. "All doctors," he said. "All doctors . . ._  
_

* * *

_Days Until Moon Cross: 10_

Devon pushed open the front door of the gathering space and sat with a thump on the steps. She rubbed her eyes hard, blinking against the sandy feel. She squinted upwards, staring at the constellations that had been so alien two years ago. The moons had set, two icy half-circles sinking into the sea. It was somewhere around 3 am, she estimated, and tugged her coat around herself, rubbing her cheek against the fur on the collar. This close to Moon Cross, the night temps were sliding ever downward.

Around eleven, Julia had called to tell her that the reason Uly was sick was that there wasn't a trace of the vaccine in his blood stream. He'd been scrubbed as clean as a whistle, vulnerable to the bug that every other advancer was guarded against. How, the doctor didn't know and didn't have time to theorize over it.

About midnight, Devon had reluctantly left Uly in Yale's care and gone to be Madam Governor, supervising the blood-testing effort, talking to parents, calming fears. She repeated praise of Julia and the vaccine over and over again, assuring her colonists that this would all be over soon.

She called Yale every ten minutes.

"We've got a problem," Alonzo said behind her.

Devon looked up. "Don't say things like that. I'll start to think you mean them."

The joke failed. Almost any joke would have failed this early in the morning, but this one would have failed in broad daylight. Alonzo sat down next to her, unsmiling. "It's about the Terrians."

"Aren't they responding?" Julia's synthesizers were having trouble with the complex organic compounds in the vaccine. With no store of Grendler spit to fall back on, and no idea where a group of the traders might be, she'd sent him a message to contact the Terrians and find out if they knew. It was tenuous at best, but it was the only hope they had.

"That's it, I--uh--"

She looked at him. "Alonzo?"

"I haven't had a Terrian dream in--in a long time."

Her stomach clutched. "How long?"

His shoulders moved unevenly. "Two months," he said, and the words drifted away, soft into the night.

She absorbed that, like a woman absorbing a full-face punch. She didn't recognize her own voice when she said, "Could it just be a lull?"

He squinted across the square at a hurrying figure. "Maybe, but they always get talkative right before Moon Cross. I--uh--I think I might have lost it. I don't know."

She closed her eyes. Calm, be calm, be calm. "Thanks for letting me know," she said, eyes still closed. "Keep trying." When she opened her eyes, Alonzo looked doubtful. "Please," she said. "We really need this."

"I know, but--"

Her calm cracked like an egg. "My son is sick," she hissed. "He's in no shape to contact them himself. You're the only other person who's ever dreamed with them without help. _You keep trying."_

He jolted backward a little, then cleared his throat. "Okay. Okay. I'll try." He almost ran away.

She dropped her head into her hands. Screaming at Alonzo wouldn't make any difference. But why hadn't he _told_ her before that he wasn't dreaming?

She thought, _Search parties. _As soon as all the blood-testing was done, she'd send out search parties to hunt for Grendlers.

Shoes thumped on the porch, and she recognized the tread before John said, "Hey."

"Hi," she said. "Did you know Alonzo's not Terrian-dreaming anymore? Not for awhile, he said."

There was a pause, then the hiss of breath that meant he was annoyed. "No," he said.

"Can you lead a search party once it gets light? Down on the beach, I think. They've stayed in those caves before."

"For Grendlers? Yeah, I'll do that." He sat down next to her. "Look, Julia just called. She thinks she can distill some of those tricky compounds from plant matter."

Devon nodded numbly. She felt as if they were scrambling after butterflies, hunting for this vaccine. Not for the first time, she imagined ripping Miguel's head off and stuffing it down his throat. It helped, some. She cleared her throat. "Sounds like something True could help with."

"That's why she called me. She needs True's hands over there now. I'm going to our rooms to roust her." His daughter had reluctantly gone to bed about three hours ago. He'd gone so far as to get a sedaderm from Julia to dose her, if need be, but she'd fallen asleep easily in spite of her protests.

Instead of getting right up, he sat with her for a moment. Devon watched their breath stream out, faint clouds lit up by ambient light from inside the building.

"I thought I was done," Devon burst out. Her voice cracked in the middle. "I thought I was done with all this."

"Hey," John said, reaching around and touching his fingertips to her far cheek. She turned her head to look at him. "We're gonna get through this," he said. "Together."

She wanted to climb into his lap, burrow into his warmth, and let everything slide away. Instead, she said, "You've told me that before."

"And I was right before, wasn't I?"

She nodded and put her arms around his waist, leaning into him for a moment. She thought of Julia, who'd walked away from the man she loved before he could do it to her. Bad timing. Right now was when you really needed someone to hang onto.

Too soon, John said, "Gotta go get True. But listen, you don't let anyone bug you out here until you're better, got it?"

She nodded, wiping her eyes. As he got up and started to walk away, she thought of something. "John!"

He turned.

"Take a glove," she said. "Just in case--" They still didn't know how Uly's body had broken down the vaccine; if it was a function of youth, then True was in danger too.

He held up his right hand. The small square LCD of the blood-testing glove spanned the back, and on the pad of his thumb was the round sensor with a tiny needle hidden in it. She hadn't noticed before. "Way ahead of you," he said, and turned toward the dorms again.

She watched him go, listening to the muffled voices behind the door at her back. She didn't feel together, but she doubted that would happen until--_not unless, until, until!_--Uly got back on his feet again. She called Yale and got a report--still asleep, still breathing easy. She hung up and took her gear off, letting it dangle from her fingers. She decided to send Walman to lead the other search party, the one going up the beach, and contemplated whether to send anyone inland.

She was about to get up and go back inside when the door opened again. "Devon?"

Oh, god, Trent. She took a deep, bracing breath. "Do they need me inside?"

"No, it's all right. I wanted to ask how Uly was." He sat down next to her, in the same space Alonzo and later John had occupied.

"No worse," she said. "How about Max?"

"He's still clean."

Devon nodded.

"Just like old times, isn't it?" he said lightly.

How many nights had she sat with him, or other Syndrome parents, in waiting rooms? Sometimes they'd had their children with them, sometimes that was who they waited for. Sometimes they would talk about their children's illness, sometimes about sports or politics or the latest holovision show. Sometimes they would say nothing at all.

Devon saw John coming out of the dorms, with True trotting by his side, rubbing her eyes but obviously ready for action. "Oh, good," she said out loud, and Trent looked at her.

"What?"

She pointed. "True's not infected."

"Were you really worried?"

"Of course I was. John would lose his mind if anything ever happened to her."

Trent made a derisive noise. "They don't know what it's like to _really _be in danger of losing someone," he said. "People like him. His daughter's never been sick a day in her life. He doesn't understand what it's like for us."

She turned to look at him, and saw in his face something she'd just realized she hated: a kind of assumed moral superiority, as if he'd automatically become a better person simply because his child had been born sick. There was an awful smugness in his suffering--_look how much better I am than you. I have this terrible burden, but _I _am accepting it bravely. _You _couldn't do that._

She wondered if she'd ever done that, and suspected she had. Before.

"She's still his child," she said sharply. "Up until a little while ago, she was all he had in the universe. And there were a few times there when he really did think he was going to lose her."

"But not like us," Trent said.

She got to her feet. "I need to go back inside now."

"I don't begrudge you a little fun, you know," he said, sounding very superior and benevolent. "Maybe even a little comfort while I wasn't here. But don't you think you should just tell him it's over?"

In spite of herself, she stopped. "Tell him _what?_"

"I mean, really, Devon," he said. "At this point you're just wasting your time."

She stared down at him. "You know," she said calmly. "I am. I'm wasting my time."

"See," he said.

"I've done everything short of sending smoke signals, and you still don't get it. What part of _not interested_ is giving you trouble?"

"It's because of that--"

"Don't you dare call him that name again!" she snarled. "This isn't about him. You think that if he weren't around, I would be with you, don't you?"

He gave her a look that said, _Well, obviously._

"I wouldn't," she said. "I hate to be a cliche, but if you were the last man in New Pacifica, I'd still be single, do you understand me?"

"But I love you," he said, as if that changed everything. As if that were the ultimate free ticket, the one thing that would get him whatever he wanted.

"So?" she said. "I don't love you, Trent. I don't even like you. I feel nothing for you. And I never will."

Belatedly, Devon realized she could see him clearly, not just by dim starlight. She looked up, and her face was bathed in light spilling out the open door of the gathering space. Several people stood around it, their eyes flicking avidly from her to Trent back to her.

She ignored them, turning back just long enough to say, "Don't bother me again."

Then she went inside, pushing through the thin crowd and leaving him out in the cold. She had better things to do tonight.

* * *

True yawned, feeling her jaw creak. She was wiped out. She didn't know how Julia was still going. "Can I have some coffee?" she asked hopefully.

"Caffeine's not good for you," Julia said absently. On-screen, the image of her latest chemical compound and the image of the organic compounds from Grendler spit popped up. The program tried to compare them, then both images flashed red. "Damn!" She turned to True. "Go get me some of the bluegrain again."

True pushed through the crowd of medical people who were hovering around, helping Julia with her science stuff. They all had oodles of training and degrees and none of them thought she should be there, but Julia had said flatly, "She's here, she's staying," and nobody had argued.

None of them would know what bluegrain was, True thought with satisfaction.

She went into the crates of supplies she'd taken from Cameron's pantry. She also engaged her gear and speed-dialed the second number. But Molly didn't pick up. She hadn't been picking up for the past few hours.

"C'mon, Moll," True hissed. "I know you're screening. Pick up. Pick up. Come on." She waited, but her friend's face remained the flat, static image of a message program. "Okay, fine. Call me. I need to talk to you. You know why."

She hung up and took the bluegrain back to Julia, who took it with an absent, "Thanks, sweetheart."

True didn't go away, though. She planted her fists on her hips and said, "Julia."

"Hmm?" Julia looked up, blinking. "What?"

"This isn't working," True said ferociously.

"Be patient."

"It's not _working."_

"What do you think we are, magicians?" someone said.

Julia ignored that and said to her, "We're getting closer, True."

"But U--people are still sick. And the search parties haven't found anything. No Grendlers." No Grendler spit.

Julia stood up, took her goggles off, and took True by the shoulders. "Listen. Uly's sick, that's true. But he's holding steady. He's strong, and he's otherwise healthy."

"It killed Wentworth and Fierstein," True said in a small voice. "They were strong too. They were grown-ups." She remembered watching Zero bury them. She remembered the look on her dad's face, watching them go in the ground. She remembered the way Devon had cried when Uly had relapsed, and leaving Devon behind in the blue glow of the cryo-chamber, and leaving Eben behind in the ground, wrapped up in plastic, no longer Eben, just a body.

Julia said, "But it took a long time. And I've seen this before. We'll beat this."

"Are you sure?" True said.

Julia looked around at the circle of faces around her, and when she said, "We'll beat this," again, True knew that the doctor wasn't just talking to her.

True went to the box of grains and fruits she'd gotten from Cameron's pantry and re-organized it for lack of anything better to do, while the science went on without her. She thought, _Before _they _came, I would have been helping more._

Plastic swished, and everyone turned, hope in their faces. True sat up. Maybe they'd found a Grendler.

"Hourly report," said the tech, and there was a general sagging all around.

"Go ahead," said Julia. "How many new cases?"

He referred to a pad. "We're up to four hundred and thirty-four infected non-Syndrome. Of that, a hundred and nineteen are showing symptoms. Most of them are mild, but ten cases, including the first two, are acute."

True remembered the last hourly report and did some quick and dirty math, counting on her fingers. The number of infected people had gone up by over a hundred, and the people showing symptoms had doubled. Did that mean it was accelerating?

Julia nodded. "What's the rate of infection among the Syndrome children?"

"Three new cases. Brings it up to seventeen. The newest one is five. She's already showing signs of--"

_Five? _True snapped to attention like a koba spotting a bug. "Who is it? The five-year-old."

The tech ignored her. "Showing signs of photosensitivity and--"

"Who is it?" True persisted.

"True, don't interrupt," Julia said, and to the tech, "Go on. Photosensitivity and?"

"And nerve disruption. She's one of the stronger ones, but--"

"Is it Angie?" True asked, with her heart in her mouth. "Is it Angie Ketchum?"

Now everyone was looking at her all annoyed, but she didn't care, because if it was Angie, then--

The tech gave her a dirty look. "Yeah, that's the name. Can I finish?"

True stood up. "Julia? I gotta go."

"Now?" Julia said.

"Right now."

* * *

She scrambled across the square, trying to run and activate the tracking program on her gear at the same time. She almost ran into the tree in the northeast corner and gave it up for just running. Nobody stopped her. It wasn't unusual, today, to see someone rushing around as if life depended on it.

She meant to go right to her room, but found herself stopping at Devon and Uly's first. She thought, _I probably shouldn't_, but knocked anyway. Yale came to the door. "True?"

"Is Uly awake?" she panted.

"No, he's asleep for the moment. Is something--?"

"I wanted to see him. Can I just look?"

Yale studied her face, then glanced over his shoulder. "I can't see the harm. But try not to wake him."

True tiptoed past him and to the head of Devon's bed, where Uly still curled up. The room was almost completely dark, the only illumination leaking in around the shutters. Even so, Uly had his face turned away from it.

Her hand lifted, then fluttered back to her side. She wondered if she should touch him, or not. He looked very small. Very young.

"Uly," she whispered, afraid to speak any louder.

He shifted, and she caught her breath. But he just moved his head, as if seeking a cool spot on the pillow, and slept on.

"I'm going to fix this," she said softly. "No stinkin' disease is gonna get you while I'm around. Don't worry, 'kay? I'm going to make it all better."

She looked over her shoulder at Yale. "Thanks," she said. "I'm going now."

Trotting down the corridor, she finally managed to get the tracking program activated. In her own room, she turned on the lights and looked on all the flat surfaces. Had her dad taken it back with him? Or maybe--and this was what she was hoping for--he'd just dropped it and left.

Just then, the tracking program gave a triumphant beep. It had traced Molly's signal. True paused a moment to study the map. She was out at the barn. Good. Not far. Just one more thing--

True made a frustrated noise in her throat and dropped to her hands and knees, peering under the bed. Something glinted in the shadows. She reached in.

Her fingers closed around the sedaderm, and she smiled.


	16. Daughters

Soundtrack note: Just a Little Girl by Amy Studt

Daughters

Molly had snuck away from the weaving shed, to the cliffs. She was going to catch it but good when she got back. But she didn't care, she needed to get out.

"I don't know what it is about you lately," her mother had said to her the night before. "You're impossible, ever since we came to this awful place. Always disappearing with that True Danziger."

Molly had thought, _It's not awful, I love it here_, but she only said, "True's my friend."

"Why couldn't you be friends with somebody else?"

Molly didn't want to be friends with somebody else. They all knew her from before and didn't want anything to do with her. Nobody else knew G889 quite like True, and nobody else knew what it was like to be on the outside looking in, constantly. Certainly not her mother.

But that had been before they'd been called to the gathering place to get blood-tested. Her mother had forgotten all about Molly's newfound impossibility then, saying that this was just one more dreadful thing about this place, alien disease.

If her mom ever found out--

"Molly!"

She jumped off the rock. "True?" she said aloud.

Her friend was zooming up the slope from town in the tiny one-person ATV, her hair flying. Molly had just taken her first steps away when True yanked it to a halt and leapt from the seat. "Molly--"

"I'm not doing it, True," Molly said. "I told you I wasn't."

"But--"

"I know you need Grendler spit, but there's all those search parties, they'll find them, or Julia--"

"Julia's trying, but it's not working. Molly, you need to--"

"It'll work soon enough," Molly babbled desperately. "Don't you know what my mom would do if--"

"It's Angie."

"--she knew that I--what? What's Angie?"

"She's sick. She's got the virus."

Molly felt the ground folding up under her feet, the world collapsing in on itself. Her ears buzzed, and her vision wavered, and her fingers didn't look like her own when they reached out to grab True's wrist. "How do you know?"

"I heard. A report. I asked. They said it was Angie."

No, not Angie, it wasn't possible. Molly shook her head slowly from side to side, mouthing, _No, no, no_--not Angie. Not her sweet little sister--all Angie ever wanted was to live. That was all she wanted.

True said unsteadily, "They don't know how long it's going to be for her."

If Angie died, the bottom would drop out of their family. There would be a black hole there instead, sucking everything else into its emptiness. Mom and Dad would take her back to the stations, away from True, away from G889, away from the two best things that had ever happened to her.

If Angie died, nothing would ever be all right again.

True reached in her pocket and held up a sedaderm. "I know your mom would go crazy if she found out you could dream with Terrians, but--"

Molly shut her eyes. Crazy didn't even come close to what her mom would do when she found out, but--

Angie.

Molly opened her eyes, reached up and grabbed the sedaderm. "You'll stay with me, right?"

"Try and stop me."

* * *

Logically, Molly knew she was still curled up on the ground behind the barn, in New Pacifica. But she wasn't there--she was Somewhere Else. She was Here. And there was no place but Here in all of existence.

It looked like the real world, but there was something about it--something more, like it was super-real. The colors hurt your eyes and the feeling of the air on your skin and the earth under your feet was a thousand times more intense. Molly had always thought "dream plane" was the wrong word for it, because that made it sound as if everything should be soft and gentle, and instead it was the complete opposite.

_Angie. Angie. Angie. _Her sister's name echoed in her head with the force of a drumbeat.

* * *

True studied her friend's face anxiously. Molly had fallen asleep right away. The sedaderm was good. She took a strand of hair out of Molly's mouth, pushing it back with the rest of her hair. Underneath her eyelids, her eyes jittered back and forth in what Julia called REM sleep.

True stood, pacing a few nervous circles around the sleeping form. Maybe she shouldn't have used a sedaderm, she thought. Even though she'd gotten a kid's dose on purpose, because Julia had told her that an adult dose of seds could, like, _kill _a kid. But Molly had to be asleep for it. She hadn't practiced as much as Alonzo, who could talk with them in the real world now, or call across the dream plane when he was awake. At least, he could back when the Terrians were still talking to him.

She knew there were people around, inside the barn. But she couldn't hear them. She couldn't hear anything but the sighing of the wind and the very faint creak of the windmills as they moved in their arrhythmic dance up on the points. It was as if she'd been sucked partially inside Molly's dreams.

They were so alone.

* * *

A few feet in front of her, the earth burst open, and a Terrian rose up. Molly jolted back a step. They always caught her unawares when they did that.

"Sorry," she said.

The Terrian looked at her.

"Hi," Molly said, and felt silly. The Terrians didn't seem to do _Hi._ "Um. I have a--a favor."

He waited.

"I--we need--we need to find a group of--" Molly's mind went blank. "They're native, but they're not like you--they--"

A ghost drifted across the dream plane, a shambling, hunched figure. The Terrian inclined his head slightly, like a question.

"Yes!"

* * *

Something scraped across the dirt, and True whirled. A Terrian stood several feet away, staring at Molly.

True knew she should move, catch his attention, try to talk to him. Sometimes they understood human speech. But she stood frozen, Molly between them. She always forgot how strange they were, and it was a shock every time she saw them again.

True thought, _If somebody sees him so close to town, they're gonna freak out._

* * *

"I--we need--please, my sister." Molly felt her eyes sting. "My sister. She's sick, and--"

The hospital swam into view, off to one side, and Molly said, "Yes, her and others. Please. We just need one, the closest one, because--please, my _sister._"

Around them, the landscape was slowly changing. The curve and slope of the cliffs was unfamiliar to Molly, and they were much lower down, closer to the sea. She could just hear the deep, weird boom of waves crashing against cave entrances.

Suddenly, the riot of emotions inside her settled. It was all right. It would be all right. "Here?" She looked at the Terrian. "They're here?"

* * *

Molly, who had lain so quiet for the past ten minutes, let out an enormous gasp. She sat up in one sharp motion. At the same time, the Terrian dropped into the ground, leaving nothing behind but some disturbed dirt and grass.

"Molly!" True rushed forward. "Did you talk to him? Are you okay?" Molly was looking off down the coast, as if she could see something True couldn't.

"Yeah," Molly said. "There's a group." She pointed. "That way. A long way."

True remained on her knees, staring at her. There was something about her eyes--

Then Molly blinked and looked back at her, and she was Molly again, just another girl, True's best friend. "Shouldn't we go?" she asked.

True helped her up. "Yeah," she said. "Let's."

* * *

By the time John realized that nobody in New Pacifica had the faintest clue where his kid was, she'd been missing for three hours.

"What do you mean, she took off?" he shouted at Julia. The doc looked like hell, but John was too pissed off and scared to let that temper his fury right now. Nightmare images danced gleefully in his head, his girl curled up on the ground somewhere, too sick to move or call for help . . . or worse.

Julia shoved her hair out of her eyes. "She heard that Angie Ketchum had contracted the virus, and she disappeared. Maybe she's with Molly. Did you check?"

John had thought of that already. "Molly's AWOL, too. And I can't raise True on her gear."

"How about that, it runs in the family."

"This is not the time for fucking jokes, Julia!"

"This is also not the time to be bellowing," she shouted back. "You have no idea how--"

"_JULIA!"_

John spun just in time to see his daughter burst through the doors of the hospital. Every muscle in his body went weak with relief.

"Julia, we got it, the Grendler spit, Molly got it, Julia _look!"_ She held a gallon jug of some greyish substance aloft like a triumph torch. "We got it!"

"Oh, my god," Julia breathed, like a prayer. "Come here, quick!"

"My sister," Molly Ketchum said. She'd come in right on True's heels. "Is my sister still--?"

"She's getting it first," True promised her as Julia shot toward her lab.

John finally found his voice. "_True Danziger."_

She looked up. "Hi, Dad. I have to go help Julia."

He moved to intercept her. "Oh, no you don't." He pointed at two chairs. "Sit."

Apparently stunned, they sat.

He got on his gear. "Ketchum? I found 'em. Both of them. Yeah. No. Uh-huh. The hospital. Right." He signed off and looked at Molly. "I don't have any authority over you, unfortunately, but your parents are on their way. As for you." He looked at his daughter. "You know what's gonna happen now?"

It finally seemed to penetrate his daughter's thick skull that she was in some deep shit. Her mouth opened and closed once or twice before she managed in a very small voice, "I'm gonna . . . explain myself?"

"You gonna explain to me where the hell you've been for the past three hours and you gonna do it _right now._"

"I--we were getting Grendler spit. For the vaccine."

"You two thought you'd just wander around, without letting anybody know where you were, in the middle of a--a goddamn _epidemic_, and hope you found some Grendlers?"

"No--Dad--I--Angie--"

"I was worried sick!" he shouted. "Molly's parents have been going crazy! We all thought you were lying dead in a cave somewhere! Did you not notice that this town's on red alert right now?"

"Molly was the only one--"

"Don't give me that! You're a couple of twelve-year-olds, and damn near every vaccinated adult is out looking for Grendlers already. You notice how we didn't ask the pair of you for your help with this? You wanna know why?"

"But Dad--"

"_Because it's stupid!"_

His daughter jumped to her feet. "It's not stupid because we needed somebody who could dream with the Terrians so they could tell us exactly where Grendlers were and I've been trying to tell you that Molly's the only one!"

"_Molly!"_

True clapped her hands over her mouth, staring transfixed at Molly's mother, standing just inside the door of the hospital with a look of horror on her face.

"Is this true?" Darla said.

Molly stared at her knees, pale and frozen.

"Molly, answer your mother," Rob said.

"Yes," Molly whispered.

Her mother looked like she might have a stroke. "Didn't I tell you to stay away from them?"

"But True said--" Molly started.

"True told you to?" Darla's head whipped around like a snake's that had just spotted an unfortunate rodent. "This was your idea? You little--"

"Hey," John said sharply, stepping between them. "My kid, my problem, all right? Back off."

Darla looked as if she might argue, but then Rob said, "Molly, Darla. Let's go."

Moving as if her limbs were made of wood, Molly got up. Darla took her arm and pulled her away from True as if John's daughter were contagious. Leaning down, she hissed, "You stay away from that girl."

Molly looked horrified. "But--"

"Don't you go near her."

"But Mrs. Ketchum--" True said, getting to her feet.

John took her shoulder. "Stay put," he said. "You've got bigger problems right now."

She watched the Ketchums go, Rob and Darla on either side of Molly like prison guards. True's eyes were huge and desolate.

He refused to feel bad for her. "True," he said.

True blinked, then looked up at him. "We had to, Dad. She was the only one."

"I get the part about Terrian dreaming," he said. "But what was stopping you from calling back here? All you'd'a had to say was 'Hey, we know where some Grendlers are. You can go find them. Now we're going to come back where it's safe.'"

She looked down at her feet. "I--I guess we thought it would be faster if we did it ourselves."

"No, you didn't," he contradicted. "You didn't think at all. That's the problem."

She bit her lip. "We got the Grendler spit."

"I don't care. You're still grounded."

Her head shot up. "What?"

"You go to meals, you go to school, you go to work duties, and the rest of the time you're in our room or you're with me, you hear?"

"But--for how long?"

"Starting now, and until I say you're done."

* * *

The nurse bent over Julia, shaking her shoulder. "Dr. Heller? Dr. Heller. You need to wake up."

"Don't bother," Alonzo said.

The jug of Grendler spit that True had brought had turned out to be just enough. Julia had been able to manufacture the vaccine and get the distribution started. From what Alonzo had heard on his way through the hospital, it was already starting to take effect.

"I've seen her like this," he continued, walking into the makeshift lab. "She's out." Julia had cleared just enough room among her beakers and test tubes to settle her arms so she could rest her head. She looked as if she should be massively uncomfortable, but she was sound asleep. He looked down at her. "You could set off a detonator in her ear and she wouldn't move."

The nurse straightened, putting her hands on her hips. "She needs to get to a bed. I don't even care if it's her bed. She worked herself into the ground."

"She does that." He touched her hair, smoothing it back from her forehead. Not a eyelash twitched.

"I'll get a cot," the nurse said.

"No, I'll take care of her." Leaning down, he gathered her into his arms. She lolled like a sack of potatoes.

The nurse eyed him. "Are you sure you don't need help?"

"I'll be--fine," he grunted. "Just get the doors for me."

He fended off a barrage of questions as he took her across the square, repeating over and over again that she was fine, not sick, just tired, he was taking her to sleep in her own bed. Cameron, Baines, and Walman each separately offered their help, but Alonzo shook his head at them and tightened his hold on Julia.

Stupid, really. Julia could take care of herself. She would've been fine in a cot in the hospital. She would've been fine curled over her lab table.

Rita got the dorm door for him. He nodded at her, out of breath. His arms and back were getting sore. It always looked so easy in the vids, but carting around a full-grown woman for several minutes was definitely not a piece of cake, even someone as slim as Julia. But he didn't want to let go of her.

"Here," Rita said, opening up a room door.

"Huh?" he said. "No, our room is--" Not theirs, he remembered. She'd left it. She'd left him. First. Before he could leave her, like he'd always said he would. She had left him alone in the cavern of the room they'd shared ever since the dorms had been built, and shoehorned herself in with Magus and Denner.

Rita held open the door, waiting.

He went in. It was crowded, Julia's things set up neatly but cramped between Magus's military order and Denner's disaster zone. He let her down gently on the cot, on top of the blankets. She rolled to her side, curling up a little.

"Was she up all this time?" Rita asked.

"Close to twenty-four hours." Her boots smeared the blanket with dirt. She'd hate that--unsanitary, or something. He leaned over, plucking at the laces.

"Leave them," Rita said. "She'll be fine."

He kept working at the laces. "Yeah, she will, won't she? She'll be just fine without me."

The fraying cord tangled into knots. Rita said, "Alonzo, you're just--"

"For godsakes, let me take off her shoes."

When Alonzo had finally untangled the laces and set the shoes side by side under Julia's cot, he got to his feet, feeling like an old man. A hundred years old, he thought with bitter humor. More.

Rita still stood in the door, looking at the sleeping woman. Her face was pinched and angry and fearful.

He said, "She didn't leave me for him."

She let out a scornful noise like a laugh, and he said angrily, "She didn't." He'd been afraid of that, until he'd seen her the night before, strong and furious in the face of Vasquez's foolish blindness.

"Then why?" Rita asked, clearly disbelieving.

He shrugged. This close to Julia, he felt as if he'd swallowed a cup of razor blades, and they were cutting him up inside, tiny bleeding pieces that rattled loose inside his skin. "She doesn't need me," he said.

"That's all right," Rita said coldly. "You don't need her. You don't need anyone, do you? Must be nice. Not to need people. Even people that hurt you."

"Yeah," he said, looking down at the sleeping woman. How many times had he watched her sleep, tracing the line of her jaw and the softness of her mouth, committing them to memory? Not enough. Not nearly enough. "Must be."


	17. Aftermath

Aftermath

_Days Until Moon Cross: 8_

New Pacifica was quiet for a rest day. Everyone who had been sick was still recovering, and everyone who was well was in the hospital, spending time with their children. Devon would have liked nothing more than to shed the shackles for the day and just be with her son, John, and True.

But besides the fact that relations between father and daughter were currently in a state approaching nuclear winter, the epidemic had left its mark. After lunch, she'd reluctantly gotten up, told Uly to get some rest, and gone to the hospital. Now she stood over Angie Ketchum's bed, looking down at Molly's sister. The little girl was deeply asleep, almost comatose.

Dr. Vasquez said, "Her system's been compromised by the virus."

"How bad?" Devon said.

He led them away from the bed, into a waiting area. "She'll recover, but not fully. I'd say it's taken months off her life. Possibly a year."

A year was a lot, for a child who had an average life expectancy of seven years and five months. "And the others?"

"Younger Syndrome patients are always--"

"The others."

"It's taken its toll there as well."

Devon nodded. "You know better than I do, how these children live at risk. If you'd back me up, Miguel--"

"I told you before, I won't."

"We came here looking for a cure. Why can't you believe in the one that's here?"

"It seems to me the cure is worse than the disease."

"You've examined Uly exhaustively. How can you say that?"

"We're talking about alteration at the genetic level, Devon. I won't do it, and I won't recommend it."

"You've attempted gene therapy before."

"_Human_ genes. Not--monsters."

"They're not monsters," she snarled, then reined herself in with an effort. "They're not like us, but they're not monsters, and the gift of their DNA has effectively healed my son."

"But with side effects."

"Nothing I'm not willing to accept. Uly's still my child, and he's alive, and that's enough for me."

"I took an oath, Devon. First do no harm."

"This isn't harmful, it's a _cure."_

"By means of miscegenation." He pulled his lab coat around him. "I won't do it, Devon." He strode away, radiating righteous indignation.

So furious she was almost vibrating, Devon started off in the other direction. Astonishing how things changed. Only a few years before, Miguel Vasquez had been _the_ authority on the Syndrome, her only possible choice to head the hospital at New Pacifica, and her best ally in getting the Eden Project launched.

Now, here, he was the most stubborn opponent she had. And there were only eight days until Moon Cross.

Cutting through the doctors' cubes, Devon stopped when she saw a familiar figure. "Julia? What are you doing up?"

Julia glanced up from her datapad. There was a deep frown line between her brows, and shadows under her eyes still. "Just a little work."

"You did enough yesterday. More than enough. Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"Like you are?" Julia said, and nudged over an extra chair. "We may have a problem."

Battling a feeling of resignation, Devon sat. "Tell me."

"Do you know anybody named Linsborough?"

Devon mouthed the name a few times, searching for familiarity in the feel of it. She shook her head. "I can't conjure up a face to go with it."

"You're sure? Maybe somebody who was hired, then left the project before our departure? From the advance crew? From the medical crew? Even a family?"

Devon kept shaking her head. "The name bothers me, somehow," she admitted, "but I don't remember a particular person. I knew all the families and all the colonial crew, but the med staff was Miguel's job. What about him? Or her?"

Julia blew out a breath. "Stay with me," she said. "This gets complicated." She picked up her datapad. At the touch of a button, a 3-D hologram sprang up between them. "Look at this. It's Ryan McNab's scan."

Devon looked at the familiar lumpy-ovoid shape of a human brain. As always, it reminded her of a blob of worms that contained a tangle of thin strings. "Um," she said, trying to make it sound thoughtful rather than baffled. "Looks clean? Normal?"

"Perfectly clean and normal. For an eleven-year-old." Julia put her finger right inside the blob's borders with a stomach-turning casualness, tracing some random-looking lines. "See this? Frontal lobe? Look at the myelination--"

Devon gave up. "Julia, why don't you assume I flunked Neurology 101 and give me the bottom line."

"This is an eleven-year-old's brain, but Ryan's fifteen. Look at the date of upload."

Devon looked at the bottom of the image. _Ryan Anthony McNab_, it read, followed by the upload date. "A couple of weeks ago. So that means somebody uploaded a fake?"

"I looked in Ryan's historical data. The scan that should have been taken when he entered middle school is missing. More likely somebody went and tweaked the metadata on it to make it look like this scan was taken along with all the others."

"Somebody named Linsborough."

"That's who did the last edit. I've ordered a real scan on Ryan, to see if the chip is there, but we've got a problem."

"Yeah," Devon said, staring down at the faked scan. "I'd say we do."

* * *

Rita took advantage of the day off to call meetings of her support groups. The schedule had become irregular, thanks to work duties and nightly exhaustion, and a day without either was a chance she couldn't pass up. Her midafternoon group was sparse--only two people turned up at the appointed time, Trent Sadler and Danielle Grant. Danielle passed on the news that Brenda was with her son, at the hospital, along with a rumor that Ryan had to have brain surgery of some kind. "They found something in there," she reported breathlessly. "Something that wasn't supposed to be there."

Rita thought_, Like a brain_? but said, "Let's not speculate in her absence, all right?" Danielle was basically harmless, but she did like to be first with news, accurate or not. "How is Melissa? Is the cold still hanging on from last week?"

"Yes, but her levels are up. She didn't come down with the virus."

"That's wonderful. Trent? Max didn't take ill yesterday either?"

Trent said, "No," distractedly. "I mean, yes. He's fine."

He looked angry about something. Rita had heard all about Devon's brutal rebuff two nights before--she imagined there wasn't one person in New Pacifica who didn't know about it. About damn time, in her opinion. She'd tried to prepare Trent for the possibility that the life he'd mapped out in his head might not happen, but hadn't had much success. She could only be thankful that Devon wasn't part of the group anymore.

On the stations, she had been, but she'd only come to one meeting in New Pacifica. Afterwards, Rita had told her, gently, that it would be better if she didn't come anymore. She'd made up some comforting words about how her situation was now so unusual that the support group wouldn't do her a lot of good. However, they both knew that the reason she wanted Devon out of the group was that the number-one the parents needed to talk about was Devon.

The door opened behind Rita, and she turned to see the Ketchums. Darla looked tightly strung, and the lines on Rob's face had deepened. The faint fug of marital tension hung in the air. "Good morning," she said.

Darla gave her a look that said _that_ was clearly a matter of opinion, and sat down. Danielle leaned over. "How's Angie?"

"They're putting her in a suit and chair." Darla bit off each word like a piece of dried-out licorice.

"Both? Now?" Trent asked, clearly shocked. Rita was shocked, too. Children usually got about six months between one and the other.

"That damn virus," Darla said.

"Her system was badly compromised," Rob said, the lines carving themselves deeper yet. "The doctors said they might take her out of the chair if she improves." But from the look on his face, he wasn't holding out for that possibility.

"_Damn_ it," Darla said.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Rita said.

"At least Molly got the cure," Danielle said.

Darla's face darkened. "I told her to stay away from those things," she said. "She could have been killed. Or taken away. They could have taken her away with them. Underground."

"Do you really think that?" Rita asked.

"It's what they do," Darla said. "And _Rob--_"

"Darla," Rita cut in, recognizing that it could get ugly in a hurry. "I'd like you to use 'I' language, and speak to your husband directly."

Darla gritted her teeth. "I feel that you're not taking Molly's actions seriously."

"Honey, it's serious," Rob said. "I'm not arguing with that. But you're--" he shot a look at Rita. "I feel that you're overreacting."

"She disobeyed us!" Darla shot back.

"For a reason! What she did--"

"There's always a reason! I don't want her near those things under any circumstances!"

Rita opened her mouth, but Trent got there first. "I'm with Darla," he said. "Those aliens--they could have killed her. We didn't need them. We don't need anything from this place. The doctors would have found a cure. They were working on it."

"Wait--" Rita said.

"Not quick enough for me," Rob said. "If it had been much longer, Angie would have died."

Darla turned on him like a wild dog. "You sound like you would have sent Molly yourself!"

Rita tried again. "Dar--"

"I'm not saying that," Rob defended himself. "I'm just saying--"

"You're just saying that it's all right for her to go out and look for monsters with some little witch from the lower levels," Trent put in.

"That's enough!"

Rita so rarely shouted that they all stopped cold to look at her.

She continued, more calmly. "I can see this is a source of tension for you, Darla, Rob. Let's continue this discussion in individual sessions, all right?" Away from Trent, where he couldn't throw fuel on the fire. Although she couldn't control what he did outside the group. "Until we get that chance, I'd like you both to think about each other's point of view."

They both protested, but she said, "Put it in the box and move on. And Trent. We're not on the stations. Even if we were, I'd say this: that kind of talk is counterproductive. I appreciate that you have reason to resent the Danzigers right now, but please try to separate your feelings from their origins. Agreed?"

She waited until she got reluctant nods from the three combatants before taking another breath. "Let's move on. We've heard from Trent and from Darla and Rob," Rita said, trying to get the group back on to an even keel. "Danielle? Did you have anything you wanted to discuss with us? About recent events?"

Danielle had been taking in the argument with avid eyes. She jumped at being addressed. "Oh," she said. "Well, I--no, nothing really."

"Nothing?" Rita asked.

"Well, not really," Danielle said.

Rita knew that tone. Danielle was thinking about something but reluctant to say it, or unsure how to. She waited.

"It's just--well--Uly Adair got the virus too."

Everyone looked at her, baffled. Left field was missing a ball.

"Yes," Rita said slowly. "Does that--What do you think of that?"

"The Terrians fixed him," she said. The fingers of her left hand walked slowly over the knuckles of her right. "It was like he was a whole new boy." She cut a glance, sidelong, at either Darla or Trent, Rita couldn't tell. "Some people even said he was. Like a--a changeling, or something. He was _so_ healthy."

"Get to the point," Darla said in a brittle voice.

"Darla, please. Let Danielle work it out." Rita softened her voice. "Go on."

"He got sick," Danielle said after a moment. "The virus. It got him too. Just the same as all the other kids. He's better now, though. I saw him at the hospital."

"Yes," Rita said. "I saw him too." Dr. Heller had been examining him. Uly had looked pale and listless, but he'd been up, walking and talking. Much like the non-Syndrome children who'd gotten the virus.

"Melissa had a cold last week," Danielle said. "It's still hanging on. Just a cold. And Uly Adair is already recovering from that crazy virus."

"Listen to yourself," Trent snarled. "Anyone would think you were going to give Melissa to those things."

"Trent!" Rita said sharply. She didn't allow personal attacks in group.

"No, of course I'm not!" Danielle cried at the same time. "But all the same, you know . . ." She took a breath. "Well, it makes you think. That's all. It makes you think."

* * *

Devon and Julia turned the sign-in over to Morgan to see if his computer skills could unearth anything. The medtech Julia had assigned to the scan called her personal line within the hour. The chip was there, all right, large as life and nestled in the same spot as Alex Wentworth's.

Brenda had to be called, of course. "But how did it get in there?" she kept saying, over and over. "How?" Ryan hadn't had any operations, he had a perfect bill of health, he hadn't even been to the doctor for anything but his regular physicals.

While Julia was occupied with her, Morgan called back from the comm station in the gathering space, where the central servers were. "Give me good news," Devon said.

"Sorry," Morgan said. He looked like hell, most of the hair loose from his habitual pigtail. "The sign-in was activated two years before we left the stations."

Devon shifted in her chair, flicking her free eye over to where Julia was still talking to Brenda McNab. It looked like Ryan's mother was over the shock, as they seemed to be covering the gory details of the chip and what would have to be done to remove it.

"What about security?" she asked Morgan.

"Cleared. All indications are it's legit." He blew fine strands of hair out of his eyes, which did no good--they floated back.

"Except that the name's a complete fake. Somebody's been poking around in the hospital server whenever they felt like it for _two years?"_

"Poking around a lot," Morgan said, giving up and yanking the cord out of his hair so it fell in a ragged curtain around his shoulders. "Records show that Linsborough views files all the time," he told her, smoothing it back into another pigtail and tying the cord in quick, careless motions. "Not specific ones either--it's all over the map. Funny thing is, though, they've only been cleared for editing for a couple of weeks. It was read-only before that. And _that_ security check is a mess, loose threads all over."

Devon chewed her lip, turning that bit of information over in her head. "Can you dig any more?"

He worried a trailing end of the cord with forefinger and thumb. "I can try," he said. "But--"

"Then try."


	18. Sibling Reverie

(A/N): I know I haven't posted on this in a long time. I got very, very stuck in this chapter. Forget writer's block; this was writer's Great Wall of China. Anyway, thanks for your patience and I hope to get back on a regular posting schedule after this chapter. Cross your fingers.

Sibling Reverie

True's dad sent her off with Yale, and the only reason she didn't object to being treated like a six-year-old was because it was someplace without her dad around. She was so mad at him she couldn't even stand to see his stupid face anymore.

She complained extensively to Yale, who listened with his customary thoughtfulness. When she'd wound down, he looked up at the sky and made a little humming noise in his throat, which meant he was thinking. True waited for sympathy.

"Your father has good reason, you know," he said. "You scared him quite a bit. And the rest of us."

True sagged. Grownups were all on each others' side. Everyone in New Pacifica, it seemed like, had scolded her. Who cared about her dad and if he'd been scared? He'd get over it. What about her? Nobody had yet said, "Gee, True, thanks so much for _saving everybody's life_."

Yale was going back to the Adairs' room to check on Uly. True asked why Devon couldn't, but she had things to take care of. He explained--something about spies and stuff, but True didn't listen because she saw Molly with her mom, crossing the square. She tried out a wave, but Mrs. Ketchum saw it. Her eyes narrowed until she looked like a snake, and her hand closed on Molly's shoulder.

Molly mouthed something that True couldn't make out, and then ducked her head, following her mother to the hospital.

True swallowed back a hot lump in her throat.

"Molly's mother is still angry," Yale observed.

"Molly won't even talk to me when neither of them are looking. I can't believe she's being such a wimp." True's voice sounded wobbly, even to her, and she swallowed again.

Yale said, "Remember that Molly's not as practiced at defiance as you are. And the consequences are much more severe."

How much more severe could you get than being practically put in solitary? "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Your father values independent thinking, to the point of being deliberately contrary."

True pointed out, "He doesn't value independent thinking in _me."_

Yale got that super-annoying amused look that grownups got when they thought they knew something you didn't. "Trust me, he does. Just not at this precise moment in time. Now Molly's parents aren't as comfortable with defiance--their own or anyone else's. It took much more strength of will for her to do what she did, and right now, all that strength is bent toward simply weathering her parents' anger. Your father will come around."

True gave him a doubtful look. Her dad was pretty mad, and he could keep a mad going for ages.

Yale smiled on her. "He will."

"And Molly's parents?"

The smile slipped. "Maybe not," he said after a too-long pause.

"You're supposed to say they will," True accused him. "You're supposed to say it's going to be all right."

"You're old enough now to know that's not always true."

Well, at least somebody thought she was old enough for something.

Uly was awake when they knocked on the door. He looked better than yesterday, True thought. He didn't flinch when the light fell on him, and when Yale asked how he was, he said, "Bored."

"You can do your homework with True," their teacher said, and just smiled when they gave him looks of horror.

They were at the same level for language arts, so they grudgingly got out their datapads. True studied the first question ("Name three ways Harry is mistreated by the Dursleys") without interest. She let out a gusty sigh.

"You don't have to stay," Uly said.

She looked up. He had his arms folded across his chest, his face set in grumpy lines. He clearly wasn't any more enthusiastic about doing homework together than she was.

He continued. "You can take off any time you want. See if I care."

"Um, hello?" she said. "Grounded?"

"Grounded?" he echoed.

"Yeah." Had he not heard? Then True remembered that he'd been stuck in here all day yesterday, feverish and more than a little bonkers. And also stuck in here all day today, recovering and bored. "I'm grounded," she confirmed. "I can't go anywhere without an adult." She looked over her shoulder. "Yale's my keeper right now."

His attitude dissolved into curiosity. "What'd you do?"

"Took off without letting my dad know where I was going."

"You got grounded for that? You do that all the time!"

"I know, but yesterday was . . . weird. Be glad you missed it."

"I'm not," he said. "I _hate_ being sick. Where'd you go? Someplace with Molly, right?"

The edge had come back to his voice, and True wondered why he was being such a little jerk. "Yeah," she said. "Actually, I--"

"So why don't you go do homework with _her?"_

She slapped her datapad down on the bed. "Okay, what is your big huge problem today?"

"Me? I don't have a problem. You go off and hang out with Molly all you want and just ignore me. I couldn't care less, okay?"

"Hang out? Is that why you think I went off yesterday?"

"Isn't it?"

"No, dummy. We went to find Grendlers so we could get their spit for the vaccine."

Uly blinked at her for several moments, then said, "Why'd you do that?"

There were all sorts of reasons. Alonzo couldn't, lots of people were sick, Julia wasn't having any luck, there wasn't anybody else who could . . .

But when True opened her mouth, the real reason came out. "Because you were sick."

"Me?"

"I didn't like it," True said.

Uly looked down at his knees, drawing them up to his skinny chest. "But--you haven't--you never want to be around me anymore. Not since the ship got here. You're always with Molly. She's your best friend now."

"Well, yeah," True said. "But you're--" She fumbled for words that described Uly Adair and why it had hurt so much to see him delirious. "You're you," she said helplessly.

He looked at her sidelong. "Is it because of our parents? Them being together?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

"So, like if they ever--" He trailed off.

"Nothing's going to happen to either of them."

"You don't know that."

"Okay, I don't," she admitted. "But if something ever did happen to one of them, or we enter, like, a parallel universe and they break up--Uly, as long as I'm around, I'll take care of you. No matter what."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "'Cause. That's just the way it is. And I'm not going anywhere."

He studied her for a long time, then a little smile quirked the corners of his mouth. "Promise?"

"Yeah."

He nodded. "'Kay."

True nodded too. "'Kay."

"Soooo," he said after a long moment of silence. "What'd you trade?"

"Huh?"

"To the Grendlers," he clarified. "For their spit."

True pulled up her sleeve and held out her arm. Halfway up her inner forearm, a recently healed scar shone pink in the afternoon light. Julia said it would disappear within a couple of days. "Blood."

It struck him dumb, and he stared at the scar until True got self-conscious and pulled her sleeve down again. Then he said, "I can't believe you did that."

"Yeah, and it hurt, too," she told him. "You owe me big-time."

He laughed, and the tension dissolved. "What's wrong with trading gear or something?"

"Well, it's not like we had a lot of time to bargain," True pointed out practically. "They wouldn't turn that down, and they wouldn't risk me taking it away."

"Is that why your dad went completely into orbit?"

"He didn't see until after he grounded me for life, but it sure didn't help. Oh, and Molly can talk to Terrians. Thought you should know."

"You're kidding!"

"Nuh-uh. That's why her mom is so pissed." True sobered. "She's not allowed to talk to me anymore. I couldn't even tell her sorry about Angie."

"What about Angie?"

True started filling him in on the events that he'd missed. Their conversation was so intense that neither of them saw Yale, in the corner, smiling to himself.

* * *

After a frustrating afternoon, Devon went to dinner picturing the almighty mess of another Council operative in their midst. Wonderful. All she needed.

Fueled by his positive check-up that morning, Uly campaigned to get up and eat with everyone else, instead of staying in bed. He was getting into the bored-and-annoying stage of his recovery, and Devon gritted her teeth and gave in, extracting a promise of going back to bed right afterwards. Uly promised with a look of angelic obedience that meant he was going to find some way out of it.

"Ever think we should just freeze them at about nine or so?" Devon asked John as they stood in line for food. "Before adolescence."

"Sounds like a plan," he said wearily.

Devon studied him. There were lines dug in around his nose and mouth. She looked over her shoulder. True stood as far away from her father as the line allowed, emitting I-hate-you rays when she forgot that she was ignoring him. Uly was attempting, anxiously, to coax her out of it, but she wouldn't be coaxed. Devon thought, _At least _they're _getting along again._

"Bad day?" Devon asked John.

"Understatement."

"Wanna hear about mine?"

As he listened, the tension eased out of his face and shoulders, just as she'd hoped. "And Julia didn't know of any other Council shills?"

"No, which makes both of us think that if there is one among the colonists, they wouldn't know about Julia."

"If?" he said skeptically.

Devon rubbed her forehead. "Okay, I know that's the simplest explanation. Occam's Razor and all that. But something about all this just isn't lining up for me. I don't know what."

"Hm," he grunted.

"You know what's strange?" she said. "It's not--it's so--"

He frowned, visibly turning it over in his head. "So damn sloppy," he said. "Like a rush patch job."

"Exactly! Julia says that any pediatrician on staff, opening up Ryan's file, would have noticed. Whoever Linsborough is, they had to have known it wouldn't be good for very long."

"Maybe they didn't think it'd have to hold for too long," John pointed out. "They nearly got away with it."

"Still . . . the Council's always been more anal-retentive than this."

They chewed the problem over until Devon was sick of it, convinced that if she heard the name _Linsborough _one more time, she would scream. They were so distracted they forgot to pick up their drinks at the bar, and didn't realize it until they'd managed to get a spot for four, a precious commodity in the crowded dining room.

"I'll get them," she said, unwilling to sit and be still right now. The whole thing had her keyed up, frustrated, and wanting to _do_ something so badly that her teeth ached. Walking up to the bar to get drinks would have to do for now.

She had to wait for a temporary logjam to clear out of one of the aisles. Chatter surrounded her, and she listened to it idly. Ray Guerrero wormed past her, datapad in hand, to poke Matt Shaw in the shoulder.

"Matt, look."

"What?"

"It's not working."

"You dork, you spelled it wrong."

"Shut up! I put it in right."

"You misspelled it," Matt insisted. "Here, I'll do it--"

"Give that back, buttcake!"

"L-I," Matt singsonged, "N-S--"

The words leapt out. "What are you doing?"

Both boys froze, hunched over a datapad. Ray's hands were curled around the edge, and Matt was holding the stylus in one hand. After a breathless second as they stared up at her, they said in perfect unison, "Nothing."

She looked around. They were all getting some funny looks. She crooked her finger. "Come with me."

They hesitated.

She assumed the mask of the highest authority they knew, and said in the Mom-Voice, "Now."

They had to go out on the porch. She turned to them and folded her arms. "All right. Now tell me: are you trying to sign into the medical server?"

Their eyes widened. "No!" Ray said.

"No way!" Matt added, as if the additional word might convince her. "We're--we're--"

"Homework," Ray said in a wild burst of inventiveness, apparently on the theory that all grown-ups approved of homework and thought kids should do as much of it as possible. "We're looking up stuff for homework."

"Yeah," Matt added, almost on top of Ray's words.

"What kind of homework subject is spelled L-I-N-S-B-O-R-O-U-G-H?"

They gaped for a second that stretched out long and thin. Devon wasn't entirely sure how the leap had been made, or even if she was right, but she held her breath anyway.

Suddenly, Ray blurted, "You're not going to tell my mom, are you?"

Matt elbowed him hard, with a hiss of, "_Shupstupit!"_

"Dipwad, she knows," Ray said.

Devon let out her breath. Finally, something. "I don't know everything. That's what I need your help for."

Matt crossed his arms. "Yeah, well, unless you promise not to tell our parents, we're not going to tell you anything." He nudged Ray. "Right?"

"Yeah," Ray said.

"Matt--Ray. This is really important. It's not just about you getting into or staying out of trouble. I've got to know more about that sign-in. I've got to."

"If it's really that important, promise not to tell our parents," Ray said.

Her mouth fell open. "I just got done telling you--"

"Promise," Matt said flatly. "Or we're not spilling anything."

Devon tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling of the porch. She couldn't believe she was being played like this by a pair of eleven-year-olds. Abruptly, she had much more sympathy for John. She gritted her teeth. "Fine," she said ungraciously.

"You won't tell?"

"I won't tell."

"Spit on it?" This from Ray.

"No," Devon said. "Tell me. Where did you get that sign-in from? Who else knows it?"

"Everybody," Matt said.

"Everybody?" she asked blankly. "Everybody who?"

"All the kids," Matt clarified.

"Are you saying that every kid in New Pacifica knows this sign-in?" And she could have avoided ten minutes of haggling?

They gave that some thought. "Not, like, the really little ones," Ray said. "They don't know all the big words. And not the Syndrome kids. But the rest of us--yeah. Pretty much."

"Why?"

Matt crossed his arms. "Well, how else am I ever supposed to find out what's going on with Jaden?" Jaden was his brother.

"Nobody ever tells kids anything," Ray added. "For all I know, Lena could've grown, like, a third eye."

His friend looked at him. "Dorkus, if she had a third eye you'd see it."

Ray rolled his eyes and said with deep and gusty patience, "It's an example, moron."

"It's a stupid example, like your face."

"Yeah, well, your face--"

"Enough!" Devon said sharply, and they both gave her a look that asked why she'd broken up their fun. "Do you know of any adult that's used it?"

"No," Ray said, as if that was hilariously obvious. "Why would they need to?"

"Who gave it to you? Was it a nurse? A tech? A doctor?"

Ray said scornfully, "No way. I told you, grown-ups don't know about it."

"'Cept now," Matt muttered.

Devon ignored that, asking instead. "You got it from another kid?"

"From Molly Ketchum."

"From _Molly_? Who did she get it from?"

"Dunno. She just knew, I guess."

"Maybe it, like, got passed down through generations of Syndrome siblings," Matt suggested. "Maybe it's a heirloom." He aimed a hopeful look at her. "Maybe you should just let us have it. I mean, what could it hurt?"

"Sorry, boys. The account's already been shut down and removed from the server. Permanently."

"Aw, _man!"_

Ray said, "See, I told you I couldn't get in, and I didn't mispell it."

Before they could start poking each other again, Devon said, "Listen, if you hear anything related to this sign-in--anything you remember--if anyone says something--you'll tell me, won't you?"

They eyed her mistrustfully.

She said, "If I hear you kept something from me, the next thing I'll do is call your parents."

"Okay, okay, okay!" They held their hands up in surrender.

* * *

When she got back to the table, Uly said, "Mom, where are the drinks?"

She looked down at her empty hands. "Oh--sorry. Something came up." She slid onto the bench next to John. "Congratulate me," she muttered to him. "I'm reduced to threatening children."

"Some of 'em could use it," he said, in a voice clearly designed to carry across the table.

True shot him a glare.

Devon tried not to smile. She continued in the same low tone. "Listen. I need to ask True a few things. Can you go get the drinks? I don't think she'll be too cooperative with you here."

"What does she know about Linsborough?" He cast his daughter a suspicious look.

"Nothing, herself," Devon soothed. "But she may be able to tell me something that could lead to him."

He frowned, then got up. "I'll be back," he said, and headed off toward the bar.

True, no fool, looked at Devon. "What."

"Calm down," Devon said. "I just have a question for the two of you. Do you know anything about Molly's friendships before she left the stations?"

True's face went blank. Clearly, this was the last thing she'd been expecting. "Molly? You want to know who Molly hung out with?"

Devon folded her hands. "Anybody. An adult, even." Somebody who'd gotten Molly to trust them--

But True was shaking her head. "She doesn't talk about anybody. I don't think the other kids were real nice."

Devon looked at Uly. "Can you think of anyone?"

Uly shrugged. "There was Carlie James for a little while. Remember, Danny's sister?"

But the Jameses had dropped out of the project four years before, when Danny had died. Long before the sign-in had been activated for the first time.

Uly was still talking. "And there's always Ryan McNab."

Devon's head snapped around.

True said airily, "That's nothing."

"It's not nothing, she has the most huge gooey crush on him."

"Not anymore," True said. "It was just for a little while. She kept catching him with different girls in empty hospital rooms before they left and now she doesn't like him anymore."

"I never heard that."

"What, like she's going to tell you?"

Devon let their chatter recede. Her instincts were shouting at her. _Here it is, Devon, here it is!_ Against all sense, all logic, all the expectations she'd built up, but she knew she was right.

She mouthed _Linsborough_ one more time and finally figured out why it had bothered her.

"Whereya goin', Mom?" Uly asked.

John, back with the drinks, looked at her oddly as she got up, scrambling for her gear. "What is it?"

"I know who it is," she told him. "I don't know how I missed it. It's there. Right in the name. Linsborough," she repeated, breaking the first and second syllables apart and eliding the second and third.

"Lynn's bro," John echoed. "Shit."

"It wasn't a Council operative at all. Ryan himself created the sign-in so he could keep up with what was happening with his sister."


	19. Parental Guidance

Parental Guidance

Ryan hated being in the hospital.

He hated the smell of the place, stinking of antiseptic. He hated the sounds, muffled beeps of machinery, the hush-hush-hush of nurse's shoes, the smug tones of doctors. The whole place made him sick to his stomach. You didn't have to be Dr. I-Have-a-PhD-and-I'm-Not-Afraid-to-Use-It Vasquez to get the irony of that, or to know why.

So when he woke to pale golden walls, the sound of his heart monitor, and someone saying, "Don't wake him up," he was less than happy.

His last clear memory was of going up to the windmill on Singh Point. Lately, he'd taken to going out there, climbing it to a point halfway up, and sitting on a crossbar looking at the sea until he felt more like himself. He'd tried to grab the bars three times, but his fingers felt like marshmallows, and on the third try, he'd staggered backward and folded up on the ground. Once there, it seemed like a good idea just to close his eyes against the light that stabbed his eyeballs like giant needles.

Then it was all a jumble of fever and pain, hideous light, blessed darkness, and memories so clear he could almost taste them. Once or twice, he'd felt his mom stroking his hair back and whispering to him, comforting nonsense words. He didn't know if that was a memory from when he was younger or something that had really happened. He wondered if it was babyish to wish that it was the latter, and thought probably it was.

He realized belatedly that the hospital was flooded with light, and he didn't have a headache. He experimented with that, closing one eye and then the other, opening them both, shutting them both. No headache. He wiggled his fingers and toes, and felt no tingling or numbness. Whatever alien disease it had been was gone.

Before he could start plotting his escape, though, his mother's voice forced itself into his ears.

"He doesn't even know about the implant yet. He's barely conscious."

What implant? Had they put something in him? That could be bad.

"He should be awake soon," someone else said. It sounded like that one doctor, the hot blonde who'd just broken up with her pilot boyfriend. If Ryan were a few years older, he would totally be making a try for some of that. "His heart rate was rising."

Ryan became abruptly aware of the beep-beep-beep of his heart monitor. He breathed deep, held it, and let it out, trying to slow the rate of the shrill beeps.

"Look, I'm not asking him to run laps." Ms. Adair. Miz Boss-Lady, more like. "Just answer a few questions."

His mom again: "He's scheduled for brain surgery tomorrow afternoon. Can't it wait?"

"Brain surgery?" Ryan yelped without thinking. He slapped his hand over his mouth and slid down in the bed. Moron, moron, moron!

But still--_brain surgery?_

When he looked up, Hot Doctor, Miz Boss-Lady, and his mom were all coming toward his bed. His mom got there first. "Ryan? Honey? How do you feel?"

"Fine," he said, ducking away from her hand as she tried to rest it against his forehead. "I don't need surgery."

"Actually, you do," the HD said. "We did a scan today, and we found something."

Ryan's heart jumped into his mouth. "Wh-what'd you find?" he asked, barely noticing his mother taking his hand.

"It's a chip." Hot Doctor touched the back of her head, halfway up. "About here. We believe it's been making you--do things. But we're going to take it out, don't worry."

Ryan lifted his free hand to brush it across the back of his head, where a little patch of stubble was just growing out from being shaved about a month before. "What, that? That's not a chip. What are you, blind?"

He got three very sharp looks. "You knew it was there?" Miz Adair asked.

"It's my head," he said. "But it's not some kind of brainwashing chip, okay? You can leave it in."

Predictably, his mother ignored that. "What is it, then?"

"It's a--a thing, okay?" He fumbled for words that wouldn't get him creamed. "A health thing." It kept him healthy, right?

His mom said, "I never heard about this."

At the same time, the Hot Doctor demanded, "Where did you get it? Who implanted it?"

Miz Boss Lady just frowned at him.

"It's fine, all right? Real doctors put it in. It's not like I got some guy from school to cut my head open."

"Who put it in, Ryan?" Now his mom sounded dangerous.

"It's for science," he said. "I was helping science."

That went over like a lead balloon, from the looks on their faces.

"It was an experiment," he mumbled. "They said I could have it free if they could collect the data from me. I blew off school and went down there and they put it in."

"When was this?" his mom demanded.

"Before we left. Two weeks. You were at the hospital. Lynnie was having a thing." He'd had to take a pill just to get brave enough to go to the clinic, and when they'd let him come back, he'd burrowed under his covers and slept away two days, waking only when his mom came in to scold him for coming home hung over or stoned--his perceived condition wasn't too clear to either of them at the time.

"Why did you agree to it if you knew we were leaving?"

He shrugged, playing with the edge of his blanket. "The price was right. And they didn't know I was going. I didn't see any reason to tell them."

Hot Doctor let out a whoosh of breath. "Why would you get it in the first place, free or not? What did it do for you?"

Ms. Adair said suddenly, "Brenda, Julia--give me a moment, would you?"

They looked at her blankly.

"I'd like to talk to him alone."

Ryan got suspicious. Talk to him about what?

Hot Doctor said, "Devon--"

Ms. Adair said, "_Julia."_

The doctor frowned at her. It looked like Ms. Adair mouthed something to her, because her eyebrows quirked a little bit, as if she were surprised. "Brenda," she said, smoothly flipping sides. "Let's go to my cube. I think we should talk a little more about this surgery."

"I've heard about all I can stand," his mom said immediately. "I want to know what's going on with my son."

"Well, that's a first," Ryan snotted.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"If getting sick was all it took, I shoulda done it earlier," he fired back.

"Stop it!" Ms. Adair put herself between the two of them, her back to Ryan. "This will get us nowhere. Please leave. Or we'll be all day at this."

Ryan could feel his mother looking over Ms. Adair's shoulder at him, but he didn't look up. Let her stew. It suited him fine.

Finally, he heard two sets of footsteps, retreating. He looked up, but Ms. Adair still had her back to him. It looked like she was staring out the window, at the low humped beehives like an infestation of small volcanoes out on the edge of the stubbly bluegrain fields.

He thought, _Maybe I could just sneak off. Climb out of this bed and go._

Just then, she said, "They said you could fuck whoever you wanted, am I right?"

His hand, sneaking down to pull away the corner of his blanket, froze.

"There wouldn't be any pregnancy, no STDs. This implant was a free pass. You'd never have to think about consequences again, ever."

Ryan couldn't speak. The words were all blocked up in his throat. He thought, _My mom is gonna kill me_ and _how'd she know? _and _whoa, she said the f-word._

For some reason, the last bothered him the most. Grown-ups did not drop the f-bomb. It was a kid word, one his friends used, not a word adults actually used to refer to the act of, well, fucking.

Although he still hadn't said anything, she turned to look at him, then smiled a little twisted, unhappy smile. "You know, that con has been around since _I_ was fifteen."

"So, the Dark Ages," he said, making a feeble, brittle joke. Then, "Con?"

"There's no such thing as a neural prophylactic implant."

"They said it was experimental," he reminded her. "Like, top secret. _You_ wouldn't've heard about it." But his stomach started to hurt, like it always did when he was slowly realizing that he'd done something really, really dumb.

"That's what they said to me. Except that I paid over ten thousand credits for the privilege of getting a useless piece of metal inserted into my body. And you got it for free. Did you ever ask yourself why, Ryan?"

"They said it was science," he said. "They said--" He looked down at his lap. "I didn't care why. It didn't matter why." He frowned. "You mean you--"

"Did you ever meet anyone else in the experiment? How were you supposed to send in your data? Why wasn't it being carried out through a major university? Why didn't they make your mother sign?"

"How do you know it's not real?" he whispered. "How do you know it's a compulsion chip instead of--what they told me?"

The ferocity went out of her stance. "Ryan," she said, her voice very gentle now. "Would you ever sabotage an entire ship?"

"_What?_"

She sat down on the end of his bed. "I talked to your mom. She said she found you wandering around on the crew level, the morning you woke up on the _Virginia_. And we've recovered footage. The ship was sabotaged, and you did it."

"That's bullshit! Why would I--My mom and my sister were on that ship!" But even as he blustered, he remembered waking up and not being in the bed where he'd fallen asleep, twenty-four years before. At the time, he'd thought it was some side effect, like amnesia. Now he remembered wiping crud off his hands on his pants, when there shouldn't have been anything on his hands at all.

"That's what I'm trying to say. You would never do that on your own. Something compelled you to do it."

He took in his breath, then let it out, along with all his illusions. "The chip," he said.

"And the virus--we recognized it. That came from the chip, too."

"It made me sick?"

She nodded. "It needs to come out."

"What happened?" he said.

"When you sabotaged the ship?"

"No," he said. "To the other person. The one who had the chip when you go here."

She stiffened, just a little. "I never said there was another person."

"There had to have been," he said. "The _Roanoke _went down in flames. You recognized the virus. If there was never anybody else with the chip, you wouldn't know now. What happened?"

Ms. Adair looked down at him. "She died."

He gulped, hard. "It killed her?"

"The virus killed her. We vaccinated you and killed the virus. But do you really want to take the chance of finding out else it has in store?"

"No," he said. Damn. Brain surgery it would be, then. "Why me? What'd ever I do to anyone? I mean, I get in trouble a lot, but who would really give a shit except my mom?"

"It wasn't you," she said. "You were handy, that's all."

"For who?"

"Ryan. Listen. Where did the surgery happen?"

"Some clinic. Some free clinic. I don't know."

"Who runs the clinics?"

He got annoyed. "What is this, Twenty Questions?"

"You're smart, Ryan. Figure it out. Who runs the clinics?"

"The government," he said.

"And the government is run by--" she prompted.

His eyes narrowed. "Why doesn't the Council want us here?"

"Why do you think?"

Ryan looked out the window, at all the open space. "They can't run our lives here," he said. "They can't tell us what to do all the damn time."

Ms. Adair said, "They don't like that."

"Fuck 'em then," he said.

She smiled wolfishly. "My sentiments exactly."

"Wait," he said. "You got the implant. The fake one, I mean. When you were my age."

For a moment, he thought she was going to blow him off again, pretend she hadn't heard. Then she said, "Yes."

"Why?"

"The same reason you did," she said. "Free pass."

He attempted to picture a young Ms. Adair, screwing her way around the upper levels. Euwwwwwww. But he pushed his luck. "How did you figure out it was a fake?"

She smiled a little, a strange smile that didn't seem happy or sad. "I got pregnant."

While he was digesting that, she got up. "I need to talk to your mom. You know that, right?"

"Yeah," he said. "I know." She'd have a fit, he thought. She'd probably yell at him. He couldn't get out of it, though.

Ms. Adair went off, and Ryan slid down in the bed. Thoughts were battling in his head. They'd made him do it, he thought. He didn't have any choice.

He was such a fucking moron.

He forced his brain away from that, and it landed on Ms. Adair instead. On what she'd told him.

Ms. Adair. Wow.

It was so weird to think about grownups being kids once, doing dumb things, making stupid choices. Regretting things.

It made him sort of think that he was going to get through all this too.

* * *

John needed both hands to carry the bulky laundry basket, loaded down with laundry that had been in the drying shed since before all the excitement started. It was probably baked to a crisp now. The thought didn't bother him, although True would probably growl and storm. Right, like that would be such a change from the past day.

He managed to wedge the basket against the door jamb so he could get a hand free for the knob. As he reached for it, though, it opened from the other side. He muttered, "Thanks," and hoisted the basket again before he realized the person facing him was Rob Ketchum.

"Danziger," Ketchum said, sounding just as surprised. "I was coming to look for you."

John felt his shoulders tighten up. Looked like another diatribe on what a rotten dad he was. He said, "Found me. What is it?"

"It's about True. And Molly."

"Look," he said. "If you're going to give me a lecture on what a juvenile delinquent I've raised, you can save it. Your wife already gave me an earful." He'd given her one in return. Nobody got to rag on his kid but him.

"No lecture," Ketchum said. "I wanted to thank you."

It surprised him so much that all he could say was, "Me?"

"True's a brave girl, and strong-willed."

The words John had in mind were _reckless _and _headstrong_, but he didn't say them.

"Molly never would have had the courage to talk to the Terrians without her. And without that, Angie would've--" He stopped.

John looked away, hoping like hell that the other man wouldn't cry. Or if he did, that at least John could pretend he hadn't seen it.

Ketchum got himself together. "You raised her like that. Not to be scared of anything, not even you. You must be proud of the way she turned out. So thank you. For both my girls."

All he could think to say was, "You're welcome." They stood there awkwardly for a moment before John hoisted the laundry basket in his arms. "I have to--"

"Yeah," Ketchum said. "Yeah." He turned and went out the open door, and John continued on to his own room. He got to the door and leaned against it for a moment, thinking hard.

Finally, he bumped the door with his elbow. He wasn't about to set this basket down just to open it. "Hey. True. Open up."

For a moment, he thought she was going to let him stand out there. But after a moment, the door swung open. She looked at the laundry basket and rolled her eyes.

"Yes," he said, and put it in the center of the floor. No-man's land. "We're even going to fold it."

They folded in cool silence. For once, John was able to ignore it, since he was still turning Ketchum's words over in his mind. Finally, though, the way True snapped the shirts and pants as if they'd personally offended her got to him. He was on the point of telling her to cut it the hell out when she suddenly said, "I don't care what you say, Dad, I was right."

He paused with a single sock in his hand. "About what?"

"Nobody else would have found the Grendlers in time. Angie might have died, even. And Uly-- I was _right."_

He rooted around until he found the match to the sock he held. "When did I say you weren't?"

She stared at him for a good couple of seconds, her mouth hanging open, before she got herself together. "When you hollered at me and grounded me."

He folded the socks together and lobbed them at a crate. They bounced off the edge. He went to retrieve them. "Okay," he said. "Yeah. I lost my temper. I do that when you put yourself in danger. But I didn't ground you for what you did, baby. I grounded you for how you did it."

"Don't call me baby," she said automatically. "I'm not a baby."

"Yeah, well, you're not a grown-up, either. There's a lot of things you're old enough to do, but taking off without a word to anybody, driving seven miles down the coast, trading with an alien species, and dragging Molly along with you-- No. You're not old enough for that."

She looked at her toes. "Nothing happened," she said in a very small voice.

He reached over and tugged up her sleeve so they could both see the red scar on her forearm.

She pulled her sleeve down. "I did that myself."

He crouched down so they were eye-to-eye. "But there's a lot could've happened that you wouldn't've done to yourself."

She bit her lip.

He sat back on his heels, debating over his next words. Finally, he said them. "On the other hand, seeing what needed to be done, and doing it--yeah, you're old enough for that."

She looked up at him for the first time. "Really?"

"What you did--you're right. It saved lives. Angie's definitely, and probably others, even Uly. And for that, I'm proud of you."

Her eyes widened. "You are? You're proud of me?"

He didn't say stuff like that too often. He figured she knew he was always proud of her, no matter what. But looking at her incredulous face now, he wondered if she did know. "Yeah."

She took a few jerky breaths that might have been sobs a couple of years ago. "You didn't say that before."

"I'm saying it now," he said.

"So--um--" She stopped, digging her heel into the floor. "Am I ungrounded now?"

"Hell no."

A smile started up. "But if you're proud instead of mad--"

"I can be both," he said. "And you're still grounded."

She said, "Aw--"

"For the next three days."

She stopped whining. "That's it? Three days?"

"As long as you don't steal any more ATVs."

* * *

_Days Until Moon Cross: 7_

Molly's mom said they were going to leave.

Every time Molly thought of it, the words thudded in her head like doom. She didn't want to leave. Every time she thought of getting back on that ship and leaving G889 behind her forever, she wanted to scream and cry and hit things. No more True. No more sky and sea. No more smell of the ocean in her nose. No more trees to climb, no more running through the tall bluegrain, leaving it swaying behind her like another ocean. No more sun, no more sea, no more dreams.

How could she exist in a world without even one of those things?

But Molly's mom said, and Molly's dad didn't say anything, and the ship was almost fixed. That was the really sucky thing about being a kid. You just didn't get a choice about anything.

She was with her dad today. They'd been assigned to the bluegrain fields, which had been harvested, and now there was an expanse of stubble that needed to be raked under.

Molly worked in silence for most of the afternoon, raking away in one of those heavy, dull depressions that happened when you felt helpless. Her dad saw her wince, then told her to get the blister taken care of. She went to the first-aid box in the barn to put a pad on it.

When she came back, her dad was crouched down studying the ground. Molly thought he'd found something interesting, until she saw him reach down and run his hands over the turned-up soil, stroking it like he would stroke Angie's hair back from her forehead.

He looked--she searched for the word for several moments, and was surprised to find that it was _happy._

For the first time, she wondered if she was the only one in the family who loved this place.

"Dad," she said.

He looked up.

"Why can't we stay?" she asked.

The happy look disappeared under a resigned one. He stood up, unwittingly taking a fistful of silky soil with him. "It's complicated."

"No, it's not," she said. "It's simple. I want to stay here. You do, too, don't you?"

"Molly, you're old to know, you can't always have what you want just because you want it." The soil trickled through his loose grasp and drifted back to the ground.

"I'm not talking about getting a candy bar, Dad." She spread her arms wide, as if to embrace the field and everything beyond. "I'm talking about this!"

"I'm not going to get into this argument."

It was what he always said when his mind was made up, and nothing would move him. Molly's shoulders sagged, then she grabbed her abandoned rake and turned her back on him. They worked the rest of the afternoon in silence.

Every so often, Molly had to wipe her cheeks dry.

* * *

At the end of the afternoon, they had to wash up. Her dad got in a long conversation with Mazatl about clearing. She fidgeted and sighed until he said, "Molly, your mom's with Angie. You can go meet her there."

She didn't give him a chance to change his mind, but bolted. It was the first time she'd been allowed anywhere without supervision since the day before, even for such a short distance as the bathrooms to the hospital.

In a piece of pointless rebellion, she went the long way around and stopped by Ryan's bed. He was sitting up, staring out the window, chewing absently on a stylus. His datapad lay forgotten in his lap. The only evidence of the surgery they'd done just after lunch was the dressing high up on his neck and the white patches of the brain-wave monitor that hid in his hair.  
She'd expected to get all gooey. But she could barely remember how she'd felt before they left the stations, the thrill if he talked to her or looked at her, the dive into depression every time he ignored her. The hours of tears that followed every time she found him with some new girl.

Now he was just Ryan, somebody she'd been friends with for years before she got so silly all of a sudden.

"Hey," she said.

He looked around. "Hey, Moll." He smiled at her, and her heart sort of hiccuped. But not so big as it would have been once upon a time.

Then he said, "Discuss how early twenty-first-century American culture was impacted by religious fundamentalism. In at least five pages."

"No," Molly said in disgust. He did this all the time, then said it was because she was smarter than him anyhow. "We're still on the age of revolutions. Do your own homework."

He shrugged. "Had to try. You wanna sit?" He seemed eager for company.

She sat in the chair he pointed at, her annoyance dissolving. "I guess the surgery went okay."

"You heard about that?"

"Everybody heard about it."

He scowled. "I bet everyone thinks I did that stuff on purpose."

"Um--no, not really."

"Liar." But he said it amicably.

"They took away your sign-in," she told him. "I tried to use it to find out how Angie was doing and it wouldn't let me in. Nobody else either."

"I know. They said it was a security risk. Who's risking?"

"Are you gonna make another one?" she asked.

"Of course not," he said loudly. But he held his crossed fingers where only she could see them and grinned.

She grinned back, but it faded quickly. "I've got to go see Angie," she said. "I'll see you later."

"Hey, wait. Before you go--I heard about what you did," he said. "Getting the medicine and all that."

"Oh," she said, wondering if he was mad at her about the Terrians too. He'd yelled at one, that first day when they'd come into the hospital.

But he said, "So I guess that means, like, you saved my life. Kind of."

"Oh," she said again, struck by this. "Well, it was True's idea."

"But she couldn't have done it without you. So thanks."

"Um. No problem."

"Listen, can you do me a favor?"

"What?"

"I need you to talk to the Terrians for me."

"No," she said.

"What? I just need--"

"No," she said again. "My mom won't let me."

"Screw her," Ryan said impatiently. "Listen, Moll, what's the problem? You've already done it once."

"I'm not doing it anymore," she said. "Don't ask me."

"You gotta," he said.

"No, I don't. Uly can. He's not sick anymore, he can do it. Don't ask me." She started to go, then sighed and turned back for a peace offering. "Gay rights, terrorism, and the evolution debate and you should be fine."

Ryan said, "Don't think that's going to make up for it," but as she turned away, she saw him scribbling.

Her sister was still unconscious, her body attempting to repair itself from the ravages the virus had wrought in the short time between infection and when she'd gotten the medicine. Molly touched her sister's hand, thin and pale against the bright colors of the woven blanket. It was very cold. The beeps of the heart monitor told Molly her sister was still alive, though.

Still alive, because of her.

_I did this,_ she thought, with a sense of dawning wonder. _Me._

Her mother's familiar footsteps sounded on the floorboards. "There you are," she said. "I've been looking for you."

"I came right here," Molly said, only lying a little.

They sat together for a moment, Molly's mom looking between all the monitors and Angie's still-pale face. She let out her breath. "The doctors think she might come out of it tomorrow or the next day."

Molly didn't say anything in answer. Looking at her sister, she couldn't see how Angie would come out of this coma in a year, much less a few days.

They sat in silence for several moments. Finally, Molly couldn't bear it any longer. "Are you still mad at me?"

"I told you to keep away from those creatures. I understand that they got into your dreams, and you couldn't do anything about it--although I wish you'd told me. But to seek them out--"

Molly still held her sister's hand. "Mama, Angie would've died."

"It wasn't that bad," her mom said.

"Yes, it was," Molly said. "It was that bad. She would've died if I hadn't talked to the Terrians and gotten the medicine."

"It didn't have to be you."

Molly ducked her head, staring at the blue tinge under her sister's fingernails. "The thing is," she said, in a voice that echoed oddly in her ears, "I kind of think it did."

Her mother's voice, when it came, was harsh and strained. "We _are_ going back to the stations, Molly Ann, and that's final."

Molly looked away deliberately, but the only place to look was outside the window. The woods were a blaze of color, all reds and golds and beautiful. There wasn't anything like it on the stations, not anywhere. Molly bit her lip, willing herself not to cry.

Her mother said, "This is for your own good. I only want what's best for both of you."

This was too much. Molly turned on her, tears spilling down her face. "No, you don't," she said. "You just want to go back where you think it's safe. If you really wanted what was best for us, you'd stay here, no matter how scared you were."


	20. Tipping Points

Tipping Points

"Hi," said a voice.

True looked up from her homework. "Molly?" she said. "Uh. Hey."

Molly shifted her own datapad from one hand to the other. "Can I sit down?" she asked shyly.

"Yeah," True said right away. "Yeah."

Molly slid into her usual seat across from her. "Are you still grounded?"

"Yeah," True said. "For a few days." She found herself smiling. She wouldn't have believed it even the day before, but being grounded wasn't so bad, now that she at least knew her dad was proud of her. "What about you?"

Molly's smile faded. "Until we go back. Probably even after that."

"Go back?"

Her friend nodded.

"You can't go back," True said. "You belong here. And if Angie goes back--"

Molly cut her off with a brusque "I know." Her tone softened. "I'll find some way to stay. For both of us. I'll think of something."

"We'll think of something," True told her.

"Yeah," Molly said. "We'll think of something."

They looked away from each other then, looking at the examples of autumn leaves that the little kids had stuck to a handy slate board, with the trees' names scrawled underneath.

Suddenly, True remembered something. "Are you allowed to be talking to me?" she asked. "I mean, hasn't your mom banned it or something?"

"What, me?" Molly said. "I'm not talking to you. I'm just sayin' stuff. Is it my fault if you're sitting right there where you can hear?"

True studied her. There was something new about her friend, a jut to the chin, a sparkle in her eye. She grinned. "Nope. Total coincidence."

Molly's lashes lowered, and she smiled too. Then it dissolved, leaving her sober and shy. "So, if you heard--you know, coincidentally--that I need a favor . . ." She trailed off.

"Then I'd say, I'm in."

Molly's grin returned.

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Ryan asked, watching Molly fiddle with the all-in-one unit that measured his heartbeat, his oxygen level, all sorts of critical things.

"Trust me," Molly said. "True helped install and program these. It'll work."

Even though she'd agreed to help him, he was feeling argumentative today. "So what? She put them on a table and plugged them into the wall."

Molly put her hands on her nonexistent hips. "Do you want to do this or not? Because I can call it off anytime."

"Goddamn," he said. "Simmer. Yes."

She nodded, once, a little bounce of her head. She looked different, he thought. Probably the effect of that Danziger brat. Or the effect of this place. She plugged a tiny machine into an outlet at the back of the unit, tapped several keys, and paused, chewing her lip. She tapped another few keys, and it beeped.

Ryan leaned over and studied the unit. It looked the same as ever, beeping and blipping away. "That's it?" When she nodded, he said, "So now what?"

Molly unplugged the machine and put it in her pocket. "Wait until it works. I'll find you."

She sounded so arrogant and capable that he had to say, "Damn. Sneaking away from Mommy and Daddy, talking to aliens, busting me out of the joint--what's with the new badass Molly?"

Molly shrugged. "I got tired of being good."

He didn't tell her, but he had the feeling this was just being good in another form. Some things you couldn't change.

* * *

Half an hour later, his machines sent up the alarm for the fourth time. He put his hands over his ears and yelled at the nurse who came to check on him, "Can't you get this to work right?"

She gave him an exasperated look and went back to the nurse's station to turn the alarm off.

He doodled on his datapad, poised for the next false alarm, trying to look like he was just annoyed at malfunctioning machines. He looked over at Lynnie's bed. It had plastic around it now, keeping her in quarantine at all times. His stomach felt heavy. He dropped his head and concentrated on his drawing, thinking, _I hope this works._

The fifth false alarm made him jump for real. He looked up, waiting for the nurse to come over. She just hit the switch to turn off the alarm without bothering to look in his direction.

Well, how about that. The Danziger brat's little decoy had worked.

He gave it several more minutes, then made a production of pulling the privacy curtains around his bed like he was going to sleep. With the curtains hiding his movements, he shimmied into a pair of pajama pants, because he was wearing one of those damn hospital gowns that showed your ass off to the world. Then he knelt up on the bed and opened the window.

Okay. Now for the real thing. He took a breath. This had to be really fast.

He gathered all the wires in his fist and yanked. He bit back a shriek as the sensor pads ripped away from his skin, taking some hair with it. The alarms went off again, sounding just like they had before, even though they were for real now. He only paused long enough to yell, "For fuck's sake, I'm trying to _sleep!"_

He was out the window before they cut off.

Brenda paused and took a quick right turn into the hospital, shoving through the doors with more energy than finesse. "Were those alarms I heard?" she asked Dr. Krantz, automatically craning her neck to check on Lynnie's bed. No buzz of activity surrounded it. She didn't relax until she checked Ryan's bed and saw the privacy curtains pulled. He was asleep.

"I don't know," the neurologist said, and stopped at the nurse's station. "Whose alarms are those?"

The nurse on duty looked frazzled and annoyed. "It's nothing. Ryan's machine's been going off for the past hour, and he's absolutely fine. It's just some kind of malfunction. Nobody can seem to get hold of the mechanics, either."

Brenda's eyebrows shot up. "Ryan's machines?" She turned smartly and headed for her son's bed. As she got closer, she saw what she'd missed before: the bottom edges of the privacy curtains fluttering in a draft.

She ripped them open and found exactly what she expected, which was nothing.

She darted to the open window and looked out, to see her son--the son who'd had surgery that morning--standing at the top of the hill with Molly Ketchum and a Terrian.

She got a splinter in the palm of her hand, clonked her knee, and had a very bad moment when her hips got stuck in the opening, but she was out the window and running for her son in record time.

When she got there, he was shouting at the Terrian, "Why not? _Why not?"_

_"Ryan!"_ she shrieked. "What do you think you're doing?"

He spun, then wobbled visibly, staggering a step or two before she caught him. She meant to pull him away, back to the hospital, but she made the mistake of looking up at the Terrian. Then she was transfixed.

She'd never been close enough to see a Terrian's eyes before. They were brown, with a circular pupil in the center and a white surrounding the iris. So human. Even the expression in them was close to human--puzzled and alarmed.

Those eyes looked as if she should be able to speak to them, as if they would understand. As if they knew what a child was, or a mother was. But she knew that they didn't understand those concepts.

Ryan sagged in her arms, and she almost staggered under the unexpected weight. "Ryan," she said sharply. "Ryan!"

"M'okay," he mumbled thickly, but he put his hand to his head as if trying to keep it from falling off. "Lemme go--"

Dr. Krantz came running up then, a nurse hotfooting it behind him. "Let him down, Brenda, let him lie down," he panted, pulling his diaglove on. "I've got to check the surgery site before we move him any more."

It was several confused minutes before Ryan was pronounced as fine as he could be under the circumstances, and Brenda thought to look up to where the Terrian had been standing. By then, of course, all that was left was a patch of disordered soil.

* * *

"What were you thinking?" his mother raged. "You had _surgery_ this morning, and you're climbing out windows and running around talking to aliens--"

Ryan held his stomach, trying not to listen. He was back in his bed, monitor patches stuck all over his body and the vital-stats unit repaired. Molly was in big trouble again, bundled away by her mom and dad and grounded until she was about fifty.

It hadn't done any good, any of it. Lynnie was just going to fade away like a wisp of smoke, lying in a sterile white bed, kept alive by machines. Death in slow motion.

His mom was finishing up with her favorite refrain. "--and you just didn't think. That's your problem, Ryan, you just don't _think!"_

"I was too," he said, staring hard at the foot of the bed.

"What?"

"I was thinking, Mom. I was thinking about Lynnie."

She stared at him, her mouth half-open. "Were you . . . " Her voice trailed away. "To them?"

"Yeah," he said.

"It'll kill her," she whispered.

"And what? You want her to die here instead?"

The words fell between them like stones into a pond. He'd never said it. She'd never said it. They'd both known since they'd gotten here that Lynnie was living on borrowed time.

He expected her to say something about a new drug, a new treatment, even the way Lynnie's downward spiral was happening slower than expected. He wasn't prepared for her to say, in a very soft voice, "Ryan, honey--you don't honestly believe in miracle cures, do you?"

"No," he said hollowly. "I was--I was just hoping--" He blinked and swiped a hand across his eyes. "I just want her not to hurt anymore." He rolled over and closed his eyes, and kept them closed until his mother stopped saying his name and left him alone.

* * *

Rob rubbed his temples and shut his eyes. It felt like the top of his head was coming off. He'd just grounded Molly--_again._ His sweet little girl, who'd never been in a moment's trouble in her life, was double-grounded. What the hell had happened to her on this planet?

And Molly hadn't cried or carried on like she had the first time. She'd just said, "Fine."

He sat on the end of her bed. She was sitting up under the covers, looking out the window at the moons. Even though he could reach out and touch her, she looked a million miles away. "Molly," he said.

She blinked and looked at him. "What, Dad?"

"I'm sorry about that," he said, touching the proximity lock she wore. It looked huge, too heavy for her little wrist. "But you've shown that you can't be trusted to stay in sight on your own."

"You said that before," she said.

"You know we don't want you near those things," he told her. "You know it's dangerous. Why did you do it again? I just want a reason, Molly Ann."

She looked him right in the eye. "Why do you keep saying that?"

"Saying what?"

"That they're dangerous."

"Well--they--"

"What've they ever done? I'm safe with them. I think I'm safer with them than I am with some people. Angie would be, too."

"I know you want to think they'll perform some kind of a miracle, but--"

"Angie needs to go to them."

He reached out and took her hands. "Honey--"

She kept talking over him, the words tumbling out like falling blocks. "They'll help her. They'll fix her. Daddy, we can't go back to the stations. If we go back she'll die."

"Baby, you don't know that."

Her hands tightened on his with surprising strength. "Yes, Dad, I do."

For a moment, he couldn't speak or breathe. It was as if his vision had blurred, or cleared, and he saw a stranger sitting on the bed in front of him--a round-faced girl with a tough chin and fierce eyes. She believed in those things--the Terrians--with all her heart.

All he could think to say was, "Your mother wants to go back."

"But you don't?"

"I didn't say that." But it was true; he didn't want to go back, any more than he wanted to be locked in a cage for the rest of his life. "My first priority is you and Angie. I have to think about what's best for you."

"Here is best for us," Molly said. "Tell Mom that. Make her stay. Make her let us stay."

He pulled his hands out of hers. "I'll think about it."

"Dad, please."

"I said I would think about it. Now go to sleep."

"Dad--"

"Sleep, Molly."

She gritted her teeth and flopped back in bed, her arms crossed under the covers.

"I'll be outside. I have the proximity alarm with me."

"I'm not going anywhere," she said, and yanked the covers over her head.

He couldn't go far, but he went and sat on the bench just outside the front door. He leaned against the wall, watching the stars trickle out and pondering the possible double meanings of his daughter's last statement.

He was so deep in thought that Danziger's offhand greeting startled him. Rob said impulsively, "Danziger. Give me a minute, would you?"

The other man paused. "Yeah?"

Rob took a deep breath. "The creatures," he said.

"The diggers?"

"The Terrians, yes. They'd never--" Rob stopped, licked his lips, then started again. "I just need to know Molly's safe with them. If she's been safe with them."

Danziger sat down on the bench next to him. "Think about it this way," he said. "Adair pulled up stakes and jumped twenty-two light years to save her kid's life. You think after that, she'd just let him pal around with creatures that'd harm a hair on his head?"

"That's different," Rob objected. "He's one of them."

"You ask me, he's one of him."

"What if it were your daughter that could talk to those--to the Terrians. Would you let her?"

Danziger sighed deeply and slouched over, resting his forearms on his knees. "What do you want me to say? That Molly's always going to be as safe in this place as she was on the stations? Nothing will ever hurt her? She's never going to have hard choices, she's never going to have to work at life?"

Rob looked away. "I guess," he said. "Maybe that is what I want to hear. That if we stay here, I'm never going to regret it."

"Hell, yes, you will," Danziger said. "When it's winter and the wind from the ocean threatens to freeze your nuts off, you're going to think about fixed temperature settings all day and all night. When you're up on the roof in the blazing sun, fixing a leak, you'll remember how there's never rain on the stations. When you're planting all spring and weeding all summer, you'll remember food that came already in packages and just needed to be rehydrated."

"Gee," Rob said blandly. "You make it sound so appealing."

An answering grin flickered across Danziger's face. "Ketchum? Trust me on this one thing. If you went back to the stations, you'd spend the rest of your life remembering this place and knowing you should've stayed."

Rob considered him. "As simple as that."

"Yeah."

"What about Molly? This place has changed her. I feel like I don't even know her anymore."

Danziger looked down at the ground, scuffing the heel of his boot into the dirt. "You think she'd just forget all that if you took her back? Go back to being your little girl?"

"She is just a little girl," Rob said.

Danziger sighed and got to his feet. "Not anymore." He pulled the door open. "See you in the morning."

He ducked inside, leaving Rob alone with the night. Deep in thought, he didn't see the silhouette moving across the square until his wife sank onto bench beside him. "Rob? Where's Molly?"

He looked up. "She's inside." When she looked doubtful, he added in annoyed voice, "I've got the alarm. She's there. How's Angie?"

She made a curtailed, futile-looking gesture, and shook her head. Rob's heart sank. Ever since Angie had contracted that virus, her levels had been dipping or barely holding steady. He thought of Molly, telling him with strange ferocity that if they went back to the stations, Angie would die, and a shudder went up his spine. What if it wasn't melodrama?

Darla said, "As far as I'm concerned, the sooner we're out of here, the better."

"About that," he said.

She stiffened. "_What_ about it?"

"Would it be so bad if we stayed?"

She leapt to her feet. "I don't believe this." She stormed inside the dorm building.

He followed her, not bothering to keep his voice down even though people were going to bed. "Would it? Why is it so bad here?"

"It's not where we belong."

"And the stations are? The stations made Angie sick!"

"A genetic abnormality made her sick. I don't want to talk about this anymore, Rob." She put her hand on their door.

"Wait," he said. "Molly's asleep. Don't wake her up."

"I won't," she said, and started to open it.

Rob frowned. "Darla. What's that?"

"What?" she asked, moving her free hand slightly behind her back.

"That you're holding. What is that?"

"It's nothing. Dr. Vasquez gave it to me."

"What kind of nothing could the head of the hospital give you?"

"It's something for Molly. Rob!" He'd grabbed her hand, pulling it forward so he could see what she held. She yanked. "Let go! Give it back!"

But he wrestled the hypoderm away from her and held up to the light. It wasn't labeled. "What is this?" he asked.

She crossed her arms. "It's just a sedative."

"For Molly? She's already asleep, what does she--" It hit him like a rock to the chest. "You're trying to keep her from dreaming."

She lunged for the hypoderm, but he evaded her grasp. "Those things," she gasped, trying again. "Those things get at you in your dreams! It's for her own good!"

He dropped the 'derm to the ground and put his foot down on top of it. "I've been hearing that a lot lately," he said. "I've been saying it a lot lately. I'm starting to wonder if it's their good or yours you're worried about."

"Rob," she said. "Don't. I swear if you do I'll never--"

"What?" he asked.

She stared back at him, mute. He'd been in love with her for twenty years, but now in the light of this hallway, he didn't recognize her anymore. She looked like a stranger, as if coming here had transformed the love of his life into something as alien as the Terrians.

"I'll never forgive you," she said.

Rob said quietly, "Then don't."

He pressed his foot down, hard. The crunch of splintering plastic seemed to fill the silent hallway. His wife went white to the lips.

He lifted his foot, stepping back from the mangled, wet remains of the hypoderm. "You do what you like, Darla. The girls and I are staying."


	21. Long Night's Journey into Day

Soundtrack: Lullaby by the Dixie Chicks

Long Night's Journey into Day

Ryan slept now, his overlong hair falling around the sharp, bony angles of his face. He didn't look like a child anymore, even asleep. He didn't look like _her_ child.

Brenda pulled her coat tighter around herself, staring down at him. He was fifteen. He'd be sixteen in a couple of months. When she'd been sixteen, she'd been a silly, thoughtless little thing, with no more idea of real life than a butterfly, and she'd naturally assumed he was the same.

God knew, he had his moments of thoughtlessness and self-absorption, Brenda thought caustically. But Lynnie's illness had pushed little pieces of him into adulthood far sooner than was right, and they clashed and bumped against the pieces of him that were still a child. Not yet sixteen, and he was strong enough, adult enough to understand what was happening to his sister.

She whirled and paced back to Lynnie's bed.

Her daughter was in deep quarantine still, shielded away from germs and allergens by sheets of plastic. Brenda couldn't even touch her own child without a mask or gloves. It took so long to be sanitized into safety, and in the end, it wasn't enough.

She thought of Snow White, locked away from the world, waiting. Just waiting.

Brenda had always despised that fairy tale. It seemed the height of unfairness to have to wait for some idiot prince to decide to wander in and kiss you, just so you could come back to the world. Lynnie had always thought it was silly, too. "What if he never came?" she'd asked, after Jacob had left. "What if Snow White was just stuck there? Forever?"

Unable even to die.

She rested her fingers against the plastic, wondering if Lynnie was aware, in there, in her clear casket, of helplessness and waiting and miserable boredom. Or if there was nothing left to be aware.

When Ryan had been nine, he'd been a round-faced, bright-eyed sturdy little boy who could race a block in under thirty seconds. There had been a few shadows in his face and eyes then, but they were easily banished. Lynnie had been three, and the Syndrome hadn't seemed like a death sentence then, not with all the possibilities of research going on in the fringes of medical science.

Now Lynnie was nine. Her cheeks weren't round, her eyes weren't bright. She had never run a full block, much less done it in under thirty seconds. Her hands, lying on the silvery sterile bedclothes, looked like constructions of bleached white twigs. If not for the bright blue veins, Brenda might have thought that the flesh had melted away altogether, leaving only the bones, left by inertia in the same construction as the living hand and liable to fall into disarray if bumped.

She remembered those hands nine years before, curling tightly around her own. The miracle of her baby girl, strong even in her sickliness.

On a gulping sob, Brenda closed her eyes.

"Brenda?"

She turned to find Darla at her side. Her friend looked strained and furious, the skin over her cheekbones pulling taut with anger. "What is it?" she asked, grateful for a distraction.

"I need to sleep in your room."

"Go ahead, I won't be there. What happened?"

Darla shook her head, her lips tight. "Molly--Rob and Molly--it--I--" She waved her hands. "I can't be there tonight. I just can't."

Brenda didn't pursue it. She'd seen her friend like this before. Instead, she shifted the subject to one that was always in vogue among Syndrome parents. "How's Angie doing?"

This fared no better, as a conversational gambit. Darla shrugged jerkily. "Her levels are still falling."

Brenda tried to think of something to say, but couldn't quite get the words out. She stroked Darla's back. Her friend sighed and dropped into a chair.

With her initial fury vented a little, Darla focused on her face. "Oh, Bren. What's wrong?"

"What's always wrong?" Brenda returned with unusual bitterness. "I was just thinking."

"Do you want me to leave you alone?" Darla was already getting up.

Brenda caught at her arm. "No. Please. No. I don't want to think anymore."

They sat, looking at Lynnie in silence.

It was times like this that she missed Jacob the worst. Not Jacob, exactly. He'd never been strong enough to be there in the hospital rooms with her, and eventually he hadn't been strong enough to be in the same family. But it was sheer hell, having to be the only one, there by yourself, with nobody to lean on.

Brenda felt Darla's arm slip around her shoulders, and she sagged against the other woman.

"Oh, honey," Darla said softly.

With her head on Darla's shoulder, Brenda said, "Do you know why Ryan and Molly went to see the Terrian?"

She felt her friend's body stiffen, and hurried into speech. "It was so Ryan could ask the Terrians to take Lynnie away with them."

"Molly," Darla breathed. "Did Molly--?"

"She was acting as translator," Brenda said quickly. "That's it." _For now_, she thought.

Reassured, Darla asked, "How did they get to him? Has he been dreaming too?"

"Not as far as I know. Dar--" Her hand closed around the other woman's wrist. "He told me, tonight. He just wants her--not to hurt anymore."

Darla, struck white with the horror of it, burst out, "You need to keep him away from her. He would've--"

"That's what I was thinking about just now," Brenda said. She pulled away, getting up to pace the length of her daughter's closed-off bed. "Would it have been so bad?"

"Brenda!"

"I just feel so much like Janet lately."

Darla's brow furrowed. "Janet who? Is this one of your fairy tales again?"

"Tam Lin," Brenda explained. "Do you remember? I told that story last week. About the girl who had to save her lover from the queen of the fairies?"

"It's just a story," Darla said.

"Is it? Isn't that what we've been doing? All of us? Holding on so tight while our babies become these--these--" She punched at the plastic sheet, and it billowed inward. "Just hoping that if we hold on long enough, tight enough, that we'll get a healthy child." She clutched the plastic, wishing she could rip it away and throw it on the floor. "What would happen," she said, "if we were to just let go?"

Darla got to her feet and came to her. "Brenda," she said. "I know three AM is tough, I know you start to think thoughts that--I know what it's like."

"It's not three AM," Brenda pointed out. "It's not even midnight."

"You know what I mean. Don't do anything crazy. Please."

"How do you know it's crazy? Maybe it's the only sane thing left."

"Please, I'm begging you. Don't make any decisions that you'll regret. Wait until morning. You know how it is. You know how these things, they seem so logical and then in the morning you realize that--Brenda, promise me."

Brenda looked into her friend's face, frantic with terror. She thought, _Tell me this when you're on the other side of plastic sheeting from your baby girl._ But she knew that wasn't fair, because the way things were going, that day wouldn't be very far in the future for Darla. She sighed. "All right. All right. I won't do anything until morning."

"You promise."

"I promise."

Darla let out her breath. "I think you need sleep. I think this is just lots and lots of sleep deprivation. Let's go, all right?"

But Brenda shook her head jerkily. "I don't think I could sleep. You go."

"I don't want to leave you alone."

"I want to be alone." She did, now. "One of us should sleep tonight." But Darla lingered, and Brenda said sharply, "I promised you, didn't I?"

Darla looked abashed. "You want me to bring you anything? A blanket or something?"

"No. If I get sleepy, I'll get something from one of the nurses."

"Okay." Darla went, reluctantly, looking back over her shoulder a few times. Brenda watched as she stopped by Angie's bed once again, to lean down and kiss her daughter good-night, stroking her hair for a few moments before finally tucking the bedclothes more snugly around her and slipping out the doors.

She ran her fingers across the wrinkles in the plastic that her clutching fingers had left, and then sat down by her daughter's bedside again, waiting for morning_.  
_

* * *

_Days Until Moon Cross: 6_

For once, Devon was the one being nagged awake, instead of the other way around. "Mom," said her son's voice. "Mom, Mama, Mom. Mo-om. Wake up. Mom. Mo-o-o-o-om. _Mom!_"

"M'wake," she lied, dragging her eyes open. The room was grey with approaching dawn. "Whazzit, honey?" She managed to focus, and saw that he was fully dressed. This was sufficiently unusual that her brain said, _Uh-oh, time to wake up for real._ She sat up and frowned. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said. "Mom, I gotta do something today. Can I get out of school and work detail?"

"What do you need to do?"

At that moment, her gear rang. She was going to let it go, but Uly picked it up and handed it to her. "Answer it, Mom."

Frowning, she did so. "Brenda?"

"Hi," said the other woman. "Hi. Devon. I--can I talk to Uly?"

She looked at her son. He bounced up and down a few times. "What about?" she asked Brenda.

"I should ask you first, I guess." Brenda was behaving strangely, her words coming in jerky fits and starts, her mouth trembling. "I need Uly to stay with Lynnie today."

Devon pressed her fingers to her free eye, wondering if she would still be this confused if she'd managed to complete her REM cycle. "What? In the hospital?"

"N-no. Not in the hospital. Not exactly."

It took a few seconds, but then the truth jolted through Devon like a bolt of lightning. "The Terrians?"

"I need him to go with her. Please?"

"They won't hurt her," Devon promised. "Oh, Brenda, this is--"

"I know they won't," the other woman cut her off. "But I don't know if they'll bring her back when it's--done."

"She'll come back."

"I want Uly to bring her back. I want her to be--I don't want her to be alone. I want someone familiar with her. I can't go--and Ryan can't--Uly's the only one--they were friends. I d-don't want her to be alone." Brenda took a sobbing breath. "And I want someone who can bring her back."

The enormity of what Brenda was asking sank in. Devon sat back, staring at the far wall. Brenda's voice buzzed in one ear, and Uly's in the other.

"Mom, please--"

"I know it's--"

"--can I--"

"--a lot to--"

"Wait," Devon said. "Wait. Uly, hush. Brenda, let me call you back." She folded the eyepiece back, and looked at her son. So small, she thought helplessly. So young. This was too much to ask. How could she ask her little boy to bring his friend's body back to his mother? More, to be with that friend when she died?

Uly said, "Mom--"

"Baby, I want you to know what she's asking."

"I know what she's asking. She wants me to go with Lynnie to the Terrians."

Devon didn't bother to question how he knew it, and why he was up and fully dressed minutes before Brenda had called. It _was_ nearly Moon Cross. "Sweetie, Lynnie's very ill."

"I know, Mom."

"She's much sicker than you were."

"I _know,_ Mom."

"It might not work."

The jiggling impatience faded away, and for the third time, he said, "I know, Mom."

"Lynnie's mom wants you to--to be there. If it doesn't work. And to--" She couldn't say it.

He said it for her. "To bring her back. So they can bury her. Like we did for Captain O'Neill and Eben."

"Can you do that?"

"Mom, I'm the only one."

She gathered him into her arms, hugging him tight, shimmering between pride and sorrow. He hugged her back for a few moments, then wiggled to be free. She let him go. "Can you take gear with you?"

He rolled his eyes at the incredible obviousness of it all. "Mo-om. No."

"Well, I just thought--"

"I can't. You know that."

"Is there any way to keep in touch?"

He thought. "I don't know. I can maybe talk to Molly? Or Alonzo."

"Okay. Yes. All right." Taking another shaky breath, Devon folded the eyepiece over her eye again. "Brenda?"

* * *

Julia pressed her thumb down on the square at the base of the datapad, signing off on the release paperwork for Lynnie. She set it down. "Okay," she said. "Let's go."

With a great rustle, she and McDonald pulled the plastic away from Lynnie's bed. She'd called the brisk head nurse in early to help, knowing that she wouldn't flutter and fuss. With gentle fingers, she extracted the breathing tube from Lynnie's nose, sliding it down over her bluish lips before lifting it away.

McDonald started peeling the monitor patches off the girl's pale skin. "Do you want the immunosuit?" she asked Brenda.

"She won't need it," Uly said.

"It'll be left behind," Devon said at the same time.

"Just dress her," Brenda said softly.

Ryan said nothing, staring down at his sister. He looked white and strained, the tendons in his neck pulling taut. Julia asked him, "Do you want to stay here?"

He looked up then, his eyes empty. "I'm going with her," he said.

Out of the corner of her eye, Julia saw Danziger come in, carrying something green under his arm. He found Ryan and handed it to him, saying something Julia couldn't hear. Ryan looked at whatever-it-was, blinked, and pulled it close to his chest.

McDonald buttoned the last button on Lynnie's pajama top and stood back.

There was something solemn and ceremonious about the way Brenda lifted her daughter into her arms. The pearly light slanted across her from the windows, mercilessly lighting the grey in her hair and the lines around her mouth and eyes.

They moved down the center aisle like a procession--what kind, Julia didn't know and didn't want to speculate on. Parents who had woken early and come to visit their children looked up, staring as Brenda walked by with Lynnie in her arms. Ryan came just behind her, then Devon and Uly together. Julia and Elaine brought up the rear. As they approached the doors, Julia became aware of people following. Between the shuffle of feet and the rush of whispers, it was oddly like standing out on the beach and listening to the waves.

Someone pulled the doors open. There was a tiny explosion of gasps at the sight of the Terrians on the ridge.

Julia saw Devon glance down at her son. He kept his eyes on the Terrians. His chin lifted, his shoulders squared, and subtly he became something more than a ten-and-a-half-year-old boy.

Devon stopped and turned. "Wait," she said. "Wait. Stop. Let them go."

The crowd spilled out of the doors, puddling quietly around the front of the building, but the solemn hush seemed to hold them back, leaving Brenda, Lynnie, Ryan, and Uly to go the last twenty feet in a bubble of silence.

More New Pacificans drifted up, curious, whispering, or just staring.

Danziger came to stand next to Devon, looking down at her. She looked back up, and he pulled her close.

Brenda stopped in front of the Terrians, Lynnie's head lolling against her shoulder like a rag doll's. She looked up at the seven-foot aliens helplessly, then at Uly.

"Let her lie down," Uly said.

"On the ground?" Brenda asked, and her voice was as lost as a child's.

"It's the best place."

Brenda went to her knees, still holding Lynnie. Slowly, she bent over and let her daughter rest on the cool, damp grass, among the diamond drops of dew. She stroked her face, touched her mouth, her eyes, her arms.

Ryan, who had gone to his knees as well, shook out the green thing that Danziger had given him. It was a blanket, or part of one. Threads trailed from one end as if it had been cut from the loom before it was finished. He tucked it around his sister's form, fingers clumsy and unsure.

Uly said clearly, "We've got to go now."

As if her head was controlled by a string, Brenda nodded.

"You should probably move back," he added.

As if they inhabited bodies that were alien to them, Brenda and Ryan both scooted backward, about four or five feet away from where Lynnie lay in the grass and Uly stood over her. He looked up and around, at the Terrians, and trilled something soft. They replied.

Then the earth opened, and they were gone.

A cry went up from the watching crowd, but Brenda seemed not to hear it. She sat, staring blankly at the patch of bare grass where her child had lain. Unlike Devon on that long-ago night, she didn't lunge forward, clawing at the ground.

Slowly, she doubled over, as if pushed to the ground by the force of her grief.

"Mom," Ryan said in a tremulous voice. "Mom?"

She didn't answer or look, just rocked a few times.

Awkwardly, he put his arm around her. "Mom," he said for a third time.

Though most of the town now stood watching them, her muffled wail, and the harsh, gasping sobs that followed, seemed like the only sounds in New Pacifica.


	22. Becalmed

  


Becalmed

It was a gorgeous day, even for autumn in New Pacifica, which tended to save its really shitty days for winter and spring. The sky held no clouds. The air was cool enough to snap energy into your bloodstream, and for once there was no sea-breeze. Just cool, still air, and all that blue.

The morning's hush stayed, as if it were trapped with them under an invisible bubble. There were noises, of course. Conversations, footsteps, the scream of gulls. But they barely dented the strange stillness. It was as if not only the air, but time itself had stopped and all New Pacifica hung motionless. Waiting. As if they were--

"Becalmed."

John rubbed his arms, even though he had his jacket on. "What?" he asked his daughter.

"Becalmed," she repeated as they climbed the steps to the gathering space.

"What's that?" He caught the door that Pete Benson held for them.

"When a ship's sailing on the open sea and the wind dies, and it can't go anywhere," she explained. "Becalmed. Me and Molly are reading this book in school about a guy in the old time navy."

"Why can't it use an engine?"

"Da-ad. This was before engines."

Before engines equated to prehistoric for him, but he had to admit it was a good word. Becalmed. Not going anywhere.

Molly came and got in line next to True. She said, "Weird, huh?"

"Becalmed," True replied.

They nodded significantly at each other.

John eyed them. "Molly, your parents know you're here?" he asked.

Molly suddenly became absorbed in studying a strand of hair that she pulled over her shoulder. "My dad's coming," she said.

"What about your mom?" he asked, before he saw True making frantic, throat-slashing, ix-nay upid-stay motions.

"She's not," Molly said.

O-kay.

Rob got in line behind his daughter. He looked tired and strained, closed-in, but he smiled at his daughter and nodded to the two Danzigers.

John nodded back. True would give him the whole gory story whether he wanted to hear it or not, and since that was the case, he wasn't about to discomfit both himself and Rob by asking.

After they got their food and found table-space, Devon turned up, sans plate or cup. She sat down on John's other side, but asked Molly, "Anything?"

"No," Molly said as if she'd answered the question several times before. "I'm sorry, Ms. Adair."

"Maybe if you were asleep."

"I don't think there's anything to hear yet."

"How do you know?"

"Adair," John said. "Knock it off."

"What?" she snarled.

"I said, knock it off. She hasn't heard anything. You take your meds today?"

"You always ask that. Yes, I took my meds. Why do you always ask that?"

"You've been known to forget."

"What am I, six? I haven't forgotten in a long time."

"If you consider last week a long time."

Rob and Molly looked on, wide-eyed with alarm. True bit into an apple and chewed, with every sign of enjoyment.

"I did not forget last week," Devon snapped. "I just didn't eat, and you're supposed to take them with food."

"Oh, for--"

"Just quit fussing, would you?"

"Fussing? Shit, I'm a little concerned about you, and suddenly I'm fussing?"

"You're absolutely fussing. You're fussing, you're nagging, you're overprotective, and it's a pain in the ass. If you nag me one more word today, I swear to God I'm going to rip your lungs out, wrap them around your neck, and tie them in a bow."

He propped his chin on his hands and studied her as she panted, bright red with anger. "Better?" he said pleasantly.

Her eyes narrowed. "Except for an overwhelming urge to kick you in the--shins."

He grinned to let her know he hadn't missed the last-minute substitution. "That's normal."

"Well. Yes."

He took the apple off his plate and set it down in front of her. With an expression that warned a lungectomy was still entirely possible, she bit in.

He waited until her mouth was full to say, "I don't nag."

"Do too," she said indistinctly.

"True, do I nag?"

"Yup."

Devon snickered into her apple, then noticed the looks on Rob's and Molly's faces. She lowered the piece of fruit. "I'm sorry," she said. "I forgot myself. I was--I--He likes to pick fights in public. He thinks it's funny."

"Lady, it takes two to tussle," John pointed out. "Anyway, the amount of steam you had to blow off could've cooked oysters for the entire town. If I hadn't picked a fight, you woulda bulldozed some poor colonist."

Devon made a face of agreement, looking around.

A few tables over, Darla sat with Trent Sadler and a few other of the most xenophobic parents. Their heads were together, their faces pinched and hard, their eyes malicious as they looked at Devon.

In that loud kind of voice that's meant to be accidentally overheard, Darla said, "Maybe when Lynnie McNab comes back dead, Devon Adair will shut up about those monsters."

Under the table Devon put her hand on his knee, squeezing it hard.

Already halfway up, he sat down again. After a moment, he could say, "I'm starting to re-think that. Maybe I should have just aimed you and stood back."

"Don't tempt me," she said, taking her hand off his knee.

The mood, so light a few moments before, dropped like a rock. Devon nibbled at the edges of her apple. Rob carefully avoided looking at the other table. So did Molly. True snuck glance after glanceat her friend's face.

Just as John was about to send the girls off to get more food, and the hell with grounding for the moment, True said, "Dad, can Molly and me get dessert?"

"Yes," said the three adults in perfect unison.

Without even a funny look, the girls were gone, and Rob said, "Devon, I--about Darla."

"You don't need to apologize for her feelings," Devon said.

Rob tried anyway. "She's not happy about Molly. About me supporting Molly."

"I'm glad you are," Devon said. "We may need her."

"She's still a child," Rob said sharply.

"I know," Devon said. "So is mine."

Rob was the first to look away. Devon looked down at her apple, nibbled to the core, and dropped it onto John's plate.

Not for the first time, John reflected that Devon's job sucked. He said, "He's fine."

"I know," she said too quickly. Then more quietly, "I know."

* * *

"They're talking about me," Molly said.

This was such a piece of obviousness that True didn't respond. They'd snuck out of the gathering space and were skulking around the edge of the smokehouse, too wary of further groundings to go any farther.

Molly backed up against the wall of the smokehouse and slid down until her knees were tucked under her chin. She said, "It's been hours."

"Uly was back at sunrise," True said.

"It'll take a whole day?"

True started to tell her about how it had been overnight, then she stopped. Maybe they needed the moonlight. Or the dawn. How was she supposed to know how this worked? "I don't know."

Molly pressed her feet hard against the ground and slid back up the wall. She leaned against it for a moment. "Something is happening."

True looked up quickly. "Are you hearing them?"

"No," Molly said in a taut voice. "Nothing. But I--" She pushed away from the wall with a sudden convulsive shove. "Something's happening, I know it, but I don't know what."

True, still sitting, stared up at her. Usually Molly was the calm one, and True was the restless one. This role reversal made her itchy.

A door thudded, and they both froze when they saw it was Molly's mom. But she didn't turn her head, just headed down the path at a pace that was almost a run. They both held their breath until she turned a corner and was lost to sight.

True let out her breath with a whoosh and asked the question she'd been itching to all day. "What happened with your mom?"

"Dad says they had an argument," Molly said, still staring at the point where her mother had disappeared.

"Are they--y'know--" True tried and failed to find a delicate way of saying "splitting up."

"I don't know." Molly's voice sounded lost. "I asked him if it had to do with me and he said no."

"And they tell us not to lie," True said.

* * *

Darla felt awful.

The aftermath of her fight with Rob sat like a lump in the pit of her stomach. She'd seen the look on his face when she'd made that catty remark, and it made her ill. By contrast, her skin seemed to crawl, trying to leap off her bones, as if she had needles coursing through her veins. She couldn't sit still. So she walked.

The thing about New Pacifica was, there wasn't a lot to walk through that was indoors. And today, Darla didn't want to be outdoors.

God, this place! It changed things, twisted them around. Everything and everyone she knew was different here.

Devon Adair was in love, not with Trent Sadler, whom anyone could see was a perfect match for her, but a rough-handed mechanic. Brenda, her best friend, had snapped and given Lynnie over to the creatures. The Syndrome, which had never held Angie in quite as tight a grip as some of her peers, had abruptly advanced to the point where her little girl drifted in and out of consciousness as her immune system held on by threads. Molly, whom she'd never had to worry about on the stations, had suddenly cut loose, running wild with drone children and breaking rules right and left. And Rob, actually supporting Molly.

And Trent Sadler, who seemed like her only ally sometimes, had given her a smile of approval when she'd made that nasty remark that made her want to slap him.

So what did that make her?

Without realizing she'd bolted out of town, Darla found herself on the cliffs, staring out over the wrinkled surface of the sea. The salt air seemed to infuse every pore, coursing in her veins instead of blood. The arch of the sky and the spread of the sea, the dramatic drop of the cliffs, the careless screeches of the gulls blended with each other to create infinity.

She stood, tiny and alone, a speck among other specks. Nothing.

_You don't matter_, the infinity seemed to say._ I cannot be controlled by your hands or your mind, those things that tamed the place you came from. If you want to play, I'm setting the rules._

Hatred boiled up in her, but she battled it back. Standing on a cliff-top screaming at nothing--that would be going crazy for sure. And she couldn't afford to go crazy.

"Hey."

She whipped around. Rita Vasquez stood looking at her, face set in lines of quiet concern. But the man next to her frowned at Darla. "Ketchum, right? Darla Ketchum? You okay?"

_Him._

He'd been the first one to talk to the monsters, even before Uly had been taken. He'd given Molly the idea. He'd probably given the creatures the idea. The hatred, finding a vent, exploded. "You get away from me!" she screamed in his face.

He reared back, astonished, and she followed him, grabbing his shirt. "You get away! You keep away from Molly, you freak! You keep away from both of us!"

"Wh--a--?"

She shoved, hard, and he fell backwards onto the ground. "_I'm not like you!_"

As she ran away from the cliffs, away from the sea, away from infinity, his voice trailed after her. "Jesus, I just asked if you were okay!"

* * *

Rita knelt down beside him. "What about you?"

He got to his feet, staring after the rapidly retreating figure. "Confused, but fine." He didn't want to admit that it had shaken him. He'd encountered that level of senseless vitriol before--_greasy Mexi drone!_ old voices jeered--but it seemed there was no immunity to it.

As cover-up, he twisted around, trying to see if he had gull shit on his butt or just pebbles. "What was that?"

"She's going through a lot right now," Rita said.

"Since when is that a get-out-of-jail-free card?"

"It isn't," Rita said.

They sat on a couple of boulders near the edge of the cliff. He bounced his heels on the ground. They dislodged a few pebbles, which went bouncing and hurtling down to the waves, far below.

"How are you feeling today, Alonzo?" she asked.

"Is it the family member or the analyst asking?"

"Family member," she said, her voice less mild, more annoyed, more human.

He felt better. "I feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin here, Rita."

"Is it like the night Uly was healed by the Terrians?"

"I was pretty busy that night," he told her. "But--" He frowned. He'd woken up. Abruptly. Maybe because his just-broken leg was hurting? But as he thought back over it, that seemed more like an explanation than actual fact.

A misery of jitters, that was what he remembered, and being unable to move around to quiet them, because of his leg. He'd begged True to get Julia, probably scaring her a little because he was so insistent. Then when Julia had come, he'd been hitting the downslope, all his energy focused inward, trying to understand what the Terrians were telling him, trying to use mental muscles that had since become as natural as smiling.

He hadn't even known Uly was missing, but with every bone and nerve and muscle in his body, he'd known something huge was happening.

Just like right now.

"Yeah," he said distantly, answering Rita's question a long time after she'd asked it. "I guess. Yeah."

He closed his eyes, straining outwards toward the Dreamplane. It was like groping through a familiar room in the dark, where everything became strange and possibly inimical because one sense was gone.

With a defeated groan, he opened his eyes again. "God," he said. "Miserable day."

"A lot of people are tense today," she observed.

"Tell me about it. Danz had to break up a fight earlier, and I know there've been others. I don't blame 'em."

She narrowed her eyes against the glitter of sun on water. "Hmmm," she said in that voice that meant she was thinking something over. She would think it over for a long time, he knew already. If she eventually decided it didn't hold water, nobody would ever hear about it.

If it had been Julia, she would have started talking after a moment, working her way aloud through her newest theory. He would have listened, batted it back, argued, teased, and ultimately agreed to serve as lab partner, or lab rat, whichever was required.

God, he missed her. He saw her every day, and she looked away from him, quietly setting him aside.

He'd never had to miss somebody from close up before. It was much, much worse than missing them from a distance.

* * *

"It's been nearly ten hours," someone said.

"Shush," someone else said.

"How long can it take?"

"Shush!"

Ryan scooted farther up on his hospital bed, resting his forehead on the glass of the window he'd escaped through yesterday. He could see how everyone around him was jittery and tense, but he felt numb and kind of floaty. Maybe it was the last little bits of surgery recovery.

He stared out at the sun, sliding down toward the horizon. His eyes felt gritty. He wanted to sleep. His mom was asleep. She was curled up in a hospital bed with her eyes closed, anyway.

He remembered the way her ribs had jolted against his arms, with those awful sobs this morning.

Soon the sun would set. In a few more hours, it would rise again, and it would have been a whole day since they'd let Lynnie go. Then the sun would cross the sky, and set again, and rise again, and set again, and soon it would be a week of living in a world without his sister in it.

Something hot and miserable pressed against the backs of his eyes. He'd told himself he was being all realistic and shit this morning. But he hadn't realized how much he'd hoped for the Terrians to cure Lynnie until the hours began ticking past in damnable sequence, eating away at that hope like acid.

He'd been preparing for this day for practically ever, it seemed like. Watching other kids waste away, thinking, _That'll be Lynnie_. Watching other big brothers and sisters, thinking, _That'll be me_. But none of that had prepared him, no matter what he thought.

He wanted to sleep. He wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep, like in the Rip Van Winkle story that his mom used to tell, and when he woke up, it wouldn't hurt anymore.

The chair by his bed scraped, and a voice said, "It won't be long now."

He turned his head sharply, and one of the monitor patches tugged hard at his hair. He winced, and glared at True Danziger. "What?"

"Just saying. It won't be long."

She'd be back. Or what was left of her. He turned his face to the window again. "Yeah."

"Geez, sound a little more enthusiastic about it, why don't you."

His head whipped around again. "Enthusiastic? You expect me to be enthusiastic about this?"

"Well, yeah. Your sister's getting healed."

"You stupid little brat," he snarled. "My sister is dead."

She rolled her eyes. "Dramatic much? Just because it's been a few hours--"

"You don't get it, do you?" he asked. "We didn't give her up for a miracle cure. We did it so it could all finally be over."

She stared at him, color slowly draining from her face. "You--mean--so she'd die?"

"How about that. You finally got a clue."

"I don't get it. Why would you want her to die?"

"You wait until it happens to you," he said. "Okay? When it's someone you love in the hospital, lying there basically a corpse already. Maybe your precious daddy, huh? You wait until it's him that's gone, and there's only an empty body left like the wrapper from a sandwich. He can't touch you, or talk, or smile. He can't even feed himself anymore. He won't know if you're there or gone. There's just nothing left. How about then you tell me what I should do?"

She burst out of the chair, bolted for the front door of the hospital. He didn't even bother to watch her go, but turned back to stare out the window, as if he could see Uly Adair bringing his sister's body back to town if he just stared hard enough.

Not long now.

* * *

Five or ten minutes' walk outside of town, there was a hollow in between two ridges of land. The sea breeze, investigating it, found only grass and dirt. Then suddenly, the ground heaved.

Uly rolled over, catching his breath. As always, the transition from dirt to air was a shocking one. He didn't have time to wallow in it, though; he had someone else to worry about right now. He sat up, searching for his companion. "Lynnie? Where are you?

The ground heaved again, and Lynnie, coughing, came up. She rolled over, caught sight of Uly, and scrambled backwards.

"Lynnie?" he said uncertainly.

Her eyes darted this way and that, and she gasped as if the air were too thin. She didn't seem to recognize him. Her fingers scrabbled at the dirt as if she were trying to dig her way back in.

Not knowing what else to do, Uly picked up the green blanket that he'd kept hold of all day and threw it over her shoulders.

She went still as it settled over her. Slowly, her eyes began to look human again. She lifted one hand and stroked the bumpy, lumpy fabric. "Tam Lin," she breathed.

"No," he said, horrified. What if she'd been too far gone? What if, like Mary in their first winter, she wouldn't be able to fit back into the human world again? "I'm Uly."

But she gave him an annoyed look and said, "I know who_ you _are."

She stretched out her hands, staring at the backs, flipping them over to study her palms. She looked down her body, studying it as if it were an alien artifact. She wiggled her toes, curling them under and straightening them out with an expression of fascination.

Cautiously, she got up on her hands and knees, then pushed herself up from the ground. She gained her feet and stood on them, shifting her weight every so often as if uneasy this far from the ground. "I'm healthy," she said. Her voice came out croaky, and on the last word, it cracked completely.

Uly hoped she wasn't going to cry, the way he had.

But she turned to him and asked, "What did they do?"

"Fixed us," he said.

"With what?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Julia had a ten-minute babble about DNA and RNA and genome conjunctions and other big words, and he couldn't remember the half of it. Finally, he offered, "Spare parts?"

"Is it going to stay?"

"Has so far."

She breathed in and out, carefully, as if waiting for a sudden coughing fit to seize her. She took a careful step, then another, a thing she hadn't been strong enough to do for two years.

When she spoke again, her voice was very small, almost lost. "Am I still me?"

Another question he'd asked himself, over and over again, lying awake at night and feeling the steady beat of his heart, without a pacemaker to stabilize it. He gave her the answer he'd come up with less than a month before. "I don't know who you'd be if you weren't."

She mulled that over, digging her big toe into the dirt. Finally, she nodded. "Where's my mom? And Ryan. I want to see my mom and Ryan. Where are they?"

He pointed. "Town's that way. Can you walk that far?"

She shifted her weight once, twice. The first breeze of the day stirred the hair around her face. She looked at him sidelong and gave a secretive little smile. "I can do better," she said, and broke into a run.

Uly paused a moment to watch her. Running. Every Syndrome child's dream, to run fast and free, unhampered by tubes or immunosuits or even warnings to_ take care of yourself, honey, you know you're not strong . . ._

It wasn't that simple. He was still trying to understand the two parts of himself now. He knew the changes that were coming to Lynnie. Dreams, odd knowledge, the first time you stepped into the earth instead of on it. . .

But she wouldn't be alone, like he'd been. And for the first time on this planet, Uly wouldn't be alone either.

He laughed aloud and raced after her.


	23. The Day After Yesterday

  


The Day After Yesterday

"I'm not tired."

Devon scooped her hair off her face and tried again. "Honey, it's past midnight. I know you don't feel tired, but--"

"I'm not," Uly insisted. "I wanna hang out with Lynnie." He hadn't even taken off his shoes.

"She's still at the hospital."

"I can go there."

"The doctors are running tests. Do you feel like sitting around for that?"

He ignored this attempt, cutting right to the heart of the matter. "Why can't I stay up? I swear I'm not tired."

"Because tomorrow is--" What? Another day? "Tomorrow's going to be busy." She got desperate. "Tell you what. If you're not asleep in an hour, you can stay up."

"Fifteen minutes," Uly said.

"Half an hour. That's my final offer, Ulysses."

He pondered that, weighing the use of his full name. "I won't be asleep," he predicted. "Are you going to bed, Mom?"

Oh, she wished. "I've just got one last thing and then I'm coming back," she said.

"No fair. How come you get to stay up?"

No fair indeed, that he had all this energy and she practically none. "Trust me," she said around a yawn that was fighting to get out. "I would love to go to sleep."

He hit her with his billion-watt angel baby grin. "Trade?"

"Uh-huh. Nice try, sweetie." She started to leave.

"Everybody's going to change their minds now, right, Mom?"

She stopped. "I don't know. I hope so."

"They gotta."

"Well, I hope so." She opened the door.

"What about Max?"

"I don't know about Max." She pulled the door open wider, as obviously as she could.

"Mom--"

"What!"

He stopped bouncing and stood still. In a small voice, he asked, "Are you proud of me?"

She went over and took his face in her hands. "I'm always proud of you."

"But I mean for today," he persisted, peering up at her, but no longer as far up as he had once.

She wrapped him up in her arms. "For today especially."

Prouder, she thought with her child in her arms, of what he had been willing to do, than what he had actually done. She wondered if he understood that.

* * *

She met Brenda where they'd agreed, just outside the hospital doors. "How are the tests going?"

Brenda ran a hand through her already disordered hair. "Oh, they're going on. And on. And _on."_

Devon found herself laughing. "Julia kept performing the same tests over and over again. As if the results were going to suddenly say something different. She was just--flabbergasted."

Brenda laughed too, and rubbed her hands over her face. "Flabbergasted's about the right word for it." She fell silent, fussing with her hair, tugging her shirt straight. Devon could have told her it was a lost cause.

"Devon," she said. "I wanted to meet so--I want to apologize. I need to apologize."

"For what?" Devon asked. She thought she knew what was coming, and also knew that a nice person would disavow any need for an apology. She didn't feel especially nice.

"I should have trusted you. I should have taken Lynnie to the Terrians the first day. The first minute."

Since she agreed wholeheartedly, Devon said, "Well. It worked out."

"It might not have," Brenda said. "She only had days, Devon. Maybe not even that long. If I'd waited any longer--"

Compassion welled up. "Don't think about it."

"I want you to know I'm going to help you with the other parents. Anything you ask. One-on-ones, a speech in front of everybody, a tango with a goat. Anything."

Straight-faced, Devon told her, "I don't think that last will be strictly necessary. But if you feel the need--"

Brenda laughed a little too hard at that. When she wound down, she rubbed her hands over her face again. "Sorry--I'm--whoo. I'm a little loopy."

"How long has it been since you slept?"

Brenda's eyes went a little unfocused. "Long," she said. "Um--yes. Long." She let out her breath. "I told Ryan to go sleep in our room, but then I found him snoring in his hospital bed. I don't think I could sleep right now."

"You might want to try," Devon said.

"Oh, I know I should, I'm just--afraid of waking up."

"I know what you mean," Devon said. "That whole first day, I just couldn't let go of him. As if he'd dissolve if I stepped away."

"Yes," Brenda said. "Yes."

"That night, I put him to bed, and sat on my cot just listening to him breathe. Then I left the tent, went a little way into the woods, sat down behind a tree, and cried for half an hour."

Brenda started to smile, then her face crumpled. "Devon," she said in a cracking voice. "Oh, Devon--" She put her hands to her mouth. "Sorry--"

"Don't stop yourself," Devon told her.

"My little girl, Devon--" Brenda sobbed. "My Lynnie, my little girl--"

"I know," Devon said, putting her arms around the other woman. "I know. It's all right. Go ahead." She rocked Brenda, crooning, knowing that right now, she was the only woman in New Pacifica who truly understood.

_

* * *

Days Until Moon Cross: 5_

Darla couldn't sleep.

She woke up before dawn, and lay staring into the dark. She kept seeing last night over and over again.

Lynnie.

Lynnie, standing.

Lynnie, walking--no,_ running_.

Lynnie's arms, wrapping around her mother's neck, her voice crying, "Mom!"

In a convulsive move, Darla sat up, flinging her blankets aside. She would go see. She would go into the hospital and look at Lynnie's bed, and she would see her friend's daughter lying there. Still dying. Of course she would.

It had been a dream. Things like that just didn't happen. A child wasn't dying one day and brilliantly alive the next. It wasn't possible.

Frost glittered coldly on the grass as she stepped out into the chilly morning. When the grass stabbed the soles of her feet, she realized she hadn't put on shoes. But she kept going. She had to see. She had to _see._

When she walked into the hospital, someone said, "Darla? Are you all right?"

She barely heard them. She stood, staring, at a bed in the center of the ward.

Lynnie McNab sat up in the bed, looking dreamily out the window. Her mother sat behind her, brushing her hair. For some reason, Darla couldn't take her eyes off that brush, as it moved through Lynnie's dark hair unhampered by cables or wires or a headset, without the need to be careful of monitor patches.

Just brushing her daughter's hair.

Ryan shambled up, still dressed in hospital pajamas. "Hey Mom," he said. "Hey, Big L." He flopped onto the end of the bed and started peeling the fruit he held, dropping the peels carelessly on the floor. Brenda said something disapproving, and he shrugged and passed Lynnie half.

It was a greenfruit. Darla stared as Lynnie bit in, remembering the way she'd taken one away from Angie on their first night here.

Lynnie looked up and saw her. "Hi, Mrs. Ketchum," she said politely.

The brush moving through her hair paused, and Brenda looked up. "Darla? Are you all right?"

Darla whirled and ran back out the door, her feet slapping against the bare wood until they plunged into sharp, frozen grass again. She wasn't aware of anything but the thunderous beat of her heart in her ears, until abruptly she realized that soon there would be no more ground for her to run on, and stopped so suddenly she skidded and had to catch herself on the cliff railing.

She looked down into the bay. Her breath puffed out in faint plumes, spreading and dissipating in the chill air. Her hands flexed and curled around the rough, splintry wood of the railing. She turned and felt her way along it.

It was a long way down the cliff stairs, and her feet were almost numb by the time she reached the bottom. She stopped at the base of the stairs, staring at the waves that licked the shore. Then she started walking--through the cool, gritty sand, through the wetter sand that squeaked underfoot, into the chilly water. Then she stopped.

The waves were small enough, but they kept coming, bumping her legs and splashing clear up to her knees. Her feet stung from the cold, and the breeze chilled her ankles. As each wave came in, it dug at the sand under her feet. She felt her heels sinking, and tried to shift her feet, to balance. But the sand had piled up around her toes, trapping her, and she collapsed backward, landing on her butt so hard the breath was knocked out of her.

Darla gasped at the coldness of the water, and then she shrieked. She slammed her fists into the shallow water, splashing herself thoroughly, and it made her so mad she did it again and again until her hair dripped. She threw her head back and screamed until her voice gave out in a sudden croak.

Then she was still.

The waves continued to lap at her, unchanged by her temper tantrum. The long shadows of the headlands slowly shortened, creeping across the surface of the water as the sun rose. Above her, fragile pink color slipped into the sky. A crab scuttled across the sand, and an early-rising gull shrieked discordantly overhead.

She let out her breath in a long sigh.

She was from Baltimore Block, because her great-grandparents had skylifted from Baltimore. They'd been well-off there, but once upon a time, her family had been watermen on the Chesapeake Bay, harvesting oysters and crabs and fish to make a living, to feed their families. She'd always felt lucky that she'd never had to battle the elements simply to stay alive. But now, for the first time, she wondered if those long-ago ancestors would have traded their fragile life, surrounded by sun and water, for the ordered, safe, grey world of the stations.

She looked down at her hands, lying open on the sandy bottom. Both her palms were scored with shallow cuts. She must have scraped them on the rock wall of the cliff as she came down. Water washed over her, and the torn flesh stung hotly. She watched the blood float up and wash away, back into the ocean.

"Why did you pick me?" she asked.

The reply swam up from the place dreams lived. _Pick you?_

Darla turned to look at the Terrians standing on the beach. "I understand Molly, I suppose. She loves it here. But why me?"

_You could love it here too. As your seed does. It is in you._

"That doesn't make sense," Darla said. "You don't _inherit_ that kind of thing."

The Terrian was silent, not telling her she was an idiot.

"You didn't answer me," she said, rather rudely.

_We don't pick_, the Terrian told her. _We simply speak. Only some can hear._

"Lucky us," Darla said, with an acidity that she no longer truly felt.

She wiped her face, tasting salt when it seeped in the corners of her mouth. For a moment, she wondered whether it was blood, tears, or salt water. Then she realized it didn't matter. She took in a deep breath of sea air and held it, and the last of the stations melted out of her.

"What is it like here, the rest of the year?" she asked.

_You'll see._

She smiled a little. "I suppose I will."

* * *

This morning, the Moon Cross countdown said,

Days Until Moon Cross, 5

Melissa Grant

A smudge, as if a name had been erased.

Hari Bakshi

Two more smudges.

Of five people who'd signed their children up, three had changed their minds, and Devon thought she knew the reason. He was standing in front of the board, arguing with Rob Ketchum and Brenda McNab.

"God damn it, Trent," she muttered under her breath.

He'd been stationed there for an hour before somebody had thought to wake her up and tell her he was bullying parents out of participating in Moon Cross. Luckily, Brenda had taken up the challenge, with enthusiasm, and by now, most of the town was looking on.

"Moon Cross is just an easy fix," Trent announced, waving a piece of chalk he'd managed to snatch out of Rob's hands. "It's tempting, I know. But at what cost?"

All he needed was a podium, Devon thought in disgust, edging her way through the crowd, muttering "excuse me"s as she stepped on feet.

"You make it sound like an impulse," Rob said to him. "This is hardly the easy way out, but I believe it's the best one."

Brenda, more aware of the crowd, said, "Aren't we the people who said we'd do anything for our children's health? Now's the time to back that up!"

"What about Darla?" Trent challenged, pointing the chalk at Rob like a sword. "Does she know you're doing this behind her back?"

Rob went a little pale, but said, "She knows my intentions."

"She knows you intend to make your daughter into a monster?"

"Into a _what?"_ Brenda shrieked.

Everyone saw calm, sweet-tempered Rob Ketchum's hand ball into a fist and swing back. Devon abandoned diplomacy and shoved Pete and Zack Benson aside to thrust herself in between Trent and Rob. "All right!" she shouted, with her hands on their chests. "That's enough!"

For a moment, there was silence. Devon was just trying to work out what to say next when Molly's voice, small and startled, said, "Mom?"

Everyone turned. Darla stood in the open doorway of the gathering space, the focus of a thousand wide eyes.

"Darla?" Rob said in a baffled and alarmed voice. "What happened? Are you all right?"

A valid pair of questions, Devon thought. Rob's wife wore only damp pajamas, stained with patches of salt. Her feet were bare and her hair wild. There was a smear of blood down one side of her face. She looked as if she'd been taken to the bay and dumped in.

She took a few steps forward, and the colonists parted like a latter-day Red Sea, as if crazy were catching. But Devon, looking at her eyes, thought they looked calm and clear for the first time since landing on the planet. Against all logic, her heart rose up in her chest.

As usual, Trent took the swiftest advantage. "It's clear what's happened. You did this to her. She's in emotional agony at the thought of her child being infected with alien DNA, turned into a latter-day Frankenstein--"

Then Darla spoke. "For once in your life, Trent, shut your piehole."

While he was still gaping at her, she snatched the chalk from his hand, stepped up to the board, and scrawled _Angie Ketchum_ in the first available space.


	24. T Minus

T Minus . . .

_Days Until Moon Cross: 4_

Julia stared at the info-disc that sat dead center of her desk. Her very clean desk. She twisted her rings absently, moving from one to the other in a rigid pattern.

_You could just email it._

But she'd already written the disc, she argued with herself.

_So? They're reusable._

The trouble was, she was tired of scurrying around like a mouse, trying to avoid both Rita and Miguel. The hell with it. The hell with them both.

On a wave of courage, she snatched the disc, stowed it in her pocket, and marched down to Rita's cubicle. She was going to face the woman, chin up. She wasn't scared. She could behave with dignity. She--

Was charging into an empty cubicle.

She teetered to a stop, feeling foolish. Where could Rita be?

Of course. A session.

Courage ebbed, and she thought, _I'll just leave it here. With a note. Yes, that would be better. A note. Just a quick note. Very informational. Very professional. A note._

She'd just dug her hand into her pocket for a chunk of chalk when Rita said behind her, "Did you need something, Dr. Heller?"

Julia turned a little more quickly than she was happy with, but she got ahold of herself. "Yes, I wanted to give you this." She held the disc out.

Rita looked at it as if it were slug slime. "Oh?" She didn't take it.

Thank god, she was being a bitch. That made it so much easier. "They're my notes," Julia said. "On Uly's Terrian healing. You're going to need it, with so many children signed up for Moon Cross."

Rita brushed past her and sat down at her desk. "Thank you, but my team already has that information." She turned on her datapad and began reading.

"You have the specifics on the physical changes. These are my notes on the emotional upheaval that Uly, Devon, and Yale went through after his healing. I've kept track of them for the past two years. Yale told me you'd interviewed him, so I thought it might be useful."

Rita looked up, then leaned back in her chair, twiddling the stylus to her datapad between her fingers. "My goodness," she said softly. "Dr. Julia Heller, bothering to keep track of her patients' state of mind? Careful, doctor, that starts to sound dangerously like one of the soft sciences."

Julia gritted her teeth, reminding herself that _first do no harm_ also meant people you'd really like to clobber with a sack of rocks. "Even from your viewpoint, I made that remark a long time ago. I've changed my opinions."

"How magnanimous of you."

Oh, the hell with professionalism. "Do you want it or not?" Julia asked, holding it in both hands as if about to snap it in two.

Rita's hand flashed out and snatched it away. "We might find a use for it," she said. "If only as a spare data disc."

Julia started to turn away, then whirled back. "What," she demanded, "do you want from me, Rita?"

Rita tossed the disc on top of a stack of papers that were starting to get dusty. "What makes you think I want anything from you?"

"An apology? I'm sorry. You have no idea how much. A promise that I'll never so much as look at your husband again? Granted. He's yours. I wouldn't have him as a gift. For me to throw myself over Singh Point in an agony of regret? Sorry, you're not going to get that." Julia shoved her finger into Rita's chest. "There's a limit to how much I'm willing to pay for an old mistake. I wasn't the only one in that bed, and I'm sick and tired of being the Jezebel here."

"Well now, this is fascinating," Rita said. "Keep going. We're making some interesting breakthroughs."

"Are we now? Does it bring joy to your shriveled little heart to spend all that time with Alonzo? Are you trying to get an eye for an eye here?"

All pretence of distance disappeared. Rita came to her feet. "Excuse me, but the world does not revolve around you. My relationship with Alonzo existed long before you were even born."

Julia lost her breath. She'd wondered if-- "Oh? Oh, it did? Well, no matter how much fun you might have had with him during a real-time leave thirty years ago, I'm still--"

"Is that what you think of him? That he can't have any relationship with a woman but a sexual one? I'm tempted to let you wallow in your own disgusting mind, but for his sake, I won't. Alonzo is not, and never has been, my lover. He's my grandmother's brother. He's family."

For a moment, Julia felt the ground drop away beneath her feet. Through numb lips, she managed to say, "I never knew he had family."

"Yes. He does."

"I don't understand. Your--_grandmother_ was--?"

"His sister. His younger sister. Do you even have any idea how old he is?"

"He would never tell me."

"You mean you never bothered to ask."

"I mean when I asked, repeatedly, he said it didn't matter. The same thing he always said whenever I asked him anything about his past."

Rita stared at her for a moment, as if seeing something new. She said slowly, "Did you leave him because of me?"

"Wouldn't that make you happy," Julia said, fighting tears. If she cried in front of Rita Vasquez, she'd never forgive herself. "You'll excuse me, Rita. I've got to go paint scarlet 'A's on all my clothes."

* * *

_Days Until Moon Cross: 3_

Danziger tightened the last bolt, then gave the newly installed landing gear a proprietary pat and stepped back. "She's done."

A little cheer went up among the group of jumpers and mechs that had spent the entire previous month on repairs. They clapped and grinned at the fruits of their labor.

"Brought something with me today," Danziger added, going to the big Transrover that brought them all out every morning and back every night. From the cabin, he took a crate that clinked and clinged musically as he brought it to the repair crew.

Sheila picked one out and held it up to the light. "Why John Danziger," she said, uncorking it. "Is this alcoholic, by chance?"

"Hell, yeah," he said, passing them out. Another laughing cheer went up.

They sat, drinking the pear cider in the shade of the big silver ship. Good stuff, Braxton thought, swirling it around. Didn't taste like the beer you got on the stations, but good stuff anyway.

Danziger came and sat down next to him. Braxton eyed him warily. They hadn't spoken much over the past weeks, although they'd been working side-by-side on the ship nearly every day.

They drank in silence for a minute or so.

"Not a bad repair job," Braxton said. "Considering what we had to work with."

"Not pretty," Danziger acknowledged, "but not bad. She'll get you back all right."

"How many colonists you figure'll be coming back with us?"

Danziger looked at his bottle thoughtfully. "Not as many as I'd've said a week ago. I'd be happy to see the back of some of 'em."

"You'd think they'd come all this way to turn tail and run home?"

Danziger gave him an ironic, sideways look. "It's what you're doin'."

Braxton snorted. "That's what I signed on to do."

"Hm." Danziger took another swallow, then stood up. "Have your attention a moment?"

Talk died away, and faces turned up. The only sound was the vague rustle of the tall grass.

He stood relaxed in the rich afternoon sunlight, his hands shoved in his pockets, his hair moving slightly in the breeze. "It's a good bet Adair'll mention this at dinner," he said, nodding his head at the ship. "And if I know her--and I do--she'll make a special point of letting you all know that you're welcome to stay. And since I know her, I can tell you: those won't be empty words."

"We're crew," somebody said. "Not colonists."

"Doesn't matter," Danziger said. "I know none of you planned it. Hell, I didn't. But if you want it, there's a place here for you."

People exchanged glances. Whispers rose and fell.

"It's not an easy life, but it's a good one. For me, it's better than what I left. For you--well, you can decide for yourself." He rubbed his chin. "I don't know how many of you this will matter to, but there's no debt here. Me and my kid--we're not drones. Not anymore. I was paid off legit before I left, but even if I hadn't been, it wouldn't matter. If you're still on the ground when that bird lifts off, indentured or not, you're a New Pacifica citizen until the day you die."

Nobody said a word.

"No need to make a decision right now," he said. "The batteries'll be charging up for the next four days or so. If you think this'd be a good place to live your life, let me know." He gave one final nod, then sat and picked up his bottle again. Immediately, babble sprang up.

Braxton ran his finger around the uneven top of the bottle he held. "You meant all that," he said, and it wasn't a question.

"No, I was lying." He laughed shortly. "Yeah, I meant it."

"The other day," Braxton said slowly. "When they gave that kid to the Terrians--"

"Lynnie."

"You brought her a blanket."

The old John Danziger--the one he'd known barely a month before--would have muttered and grumbled and disavowed any intention of coddling anyone. The New Pacifica John just said, "I knew she'd need it."

"What happened to her?"

"You'd be better off asking Julia that question."

Braxton snorted. "That doctor? She starts talking DNA and medical shit, and I'm asleep before she's done with her first sentence. What happened to that kid, Jack?"

Danziger drummed his fingers against the side of the bottle. "Something was missing," he said. "The Terrians filed it in."

"I could have gotten that from dinner gossip," Braxton said.

"What do you want to hear? That she and Uly are Terrian crossbreeds, brand-new mixes of human and alien?"

"Are they?"

"Yes," Danziger said without hesitation. "But being a full human--well, that really wasn't cuttin' it for them, was it?"

Braxton finally asked the real question. "What happened to you?"

"This place changes people," Danziger said. "Some faster than others. But it always changes people."

"So you're not going home because--"

Danziger broke in, his words cool and unhurried. "See, that's you don't get. The stations aren't home anymore." He looked around, at the cloud-dappled sky, the long grass, the faint shadows of the mountains on the far horizon. "This is."

* * *

Alonzo's footsteps were soft on the deck, and sounded strange. His jumper boots had worn out and fallen off his feet a year and a half ago, no better suited to the rough ground than their replacements were to the smooth, unvarying metal surface of the deck.

More than two years ago, he'd been in a cockpit just like this one.

He settled himself in the pilot's chair. Sheila would occupy it on the way back, of course. But once he was in the stations, he would sign on for another journey and then he'd be back in the pilot's chair of some ship somewhere, heading off again.

He wrapped his hands around the controls, testing them for unfamiliarity. They fit into his palms with surprising ease. Why shouldn't they, though? He'd been piloting for--

For a long time.

In less than four days, he'd be lifting off again, leaving it all behind. He was good at leaving. He hadn't done anything but leave for seven years. If he looked through the windows in four days, he'd see stars. And the heavy globe of G889, sliding away below him--

Alonzo shook his head hard, and concentrated on his mental image of the stars.

He traced his fingers lightly across buttons and panels. He couldn't shake the feeling that this _should_ look strange to him.

He lifted his eyes and looked through the windows. He nearly choked on his own tongue.

A Terrian stood outside, about a hundred feet away, still and silent. He hadn't seen one of them in weeks. Longer, it felt like. He leaned forward, trying to hear what it was saying. If it was saying anything.

Nothing.

He sat back, staring at the discordant image of the Terrian, knee-deep in waving grass, the sky behind it, framed by a polished titanium frame and separated from him by heavy plastic.

"You ready to go home yet?"

Alonzo let out his breath on a long sigh. "I don't honestly know," he said.

"Well, you'd better make up your mind quick, or you're gonna miss chow."

He turned his head sharply to stare at Danziger, who stood in the doorway of the cockpit.

"What?" the other man asked.

"Nothing," he muttered, and got to his feet. "Let's go."

When he shot a last surreptitious look out the forward windows, the Terrian was gone.

* * *

_Days Until Moon Cross: 2_

Julia turned her diaglove off. "Well, Mister Bakshi," she said. "Your levels look very good today."

Hari grinned at her. "Personal best?"

She smiled at him, remembering another little boy who'd asked that question. "It might be. But not for long."

"Why do we have wait two whole days?" The way he said it, forty-eight hours became an unfathomable lifetime of sheerest agony.

She laughed, ruffling his dark hair. "The Terrians aren't machines, Hari. They have a time and place that they have to do this, and _you_--" She tapped him lightly on the chest. "Are doing so well that you can afford to wait."

"But I don't wanna," he said petulantly.

"Yes, I know," she said. "But it's only two days. Tell me, what's the first thing you're going to do? The day after Moon Cross?"

The whine vanished as if it had never been. "I'm gonna run," he said.

"Is that it?"

"I'm gonna play tag an' soccer an' go swimming in the ocean an' I'm gonna climb that tree out there an' an' an' hang _upside down_ from a branch."

"Admirable ambitions. But you might not want to swim in the ocean, as cold as it is right now."

Hari considered then. "Then I'm gonna go fishing with my dad. And I'm gonna catch the biggest fish you ever ever saw. It's gonna be _huge."_

"How big?"

"As big as this entire _hospital."_

"It's going to be a busy day," Julia said. She got to her feet. "Now rest up. Your mom and dad are coming in after work detail."

But Hari didn't lie down. "Dr. Julia?"

"Yes?"

"How come you like kids now?"

She blinked down at him. "I never disliked you, Hari."

"You never said to call you Dr. Julia either."

True. Very true. It had been Dr. Heller, without exception. She'd wrapped herself up in her white lab coat and her dignity, wearing that damn caduceus pin as if she were proving something--_I swear I really am a doctor. Look, I have a pin!_

She'd never stopped and talked to the children she was treating, asked them about their day or their friends. Not her job, she'd told herself, and marched along to the next patient, holding herself apart from them, their parents, and her fellow doctors like a virgin on a pedestal.

"No," she admitted to Hari. "No, I never did, did I?" She smiled ruefully. "I guess I grew up." She smoothed her hand over his hair. "I'll see you later."

She went outside to sit in the shifting sunlight while she did her paperwork. It was such a beautiful day, and dull grey rainy winter was coming on so fast, that there was no point in wasting it. She had just finished uploading Hari's stats to the central databanks when a shadow fell over her. She looked up, and her hand froze on her stylus.

"I resent you, Julia," Rita said.

"Well, if that isn't the surprise of the century."

"Not for Miguel. I resent you for leaving Alonzo."

It made her blink, but she kept up the snide. "Your familial devotion is an inspiration to us all."

Rita leaned down until their faces were a few inches apart. "I resent you for having ten times the guts and self-respect that I do." She straightened up. "I don't know why he's going back."

* * *

_Days Until Moon Cross: 1_

The door slid open with a _hsh _and True stepped through. It_hsh_ed closed again behind her, but instead of stepping forward, she rested her back against the cold steel, staring at the bed in the center of the room.

Slowly, she crept forward, until she could rest her hands on the footboard. More cold steel. Why was it always so cold here? Half the time, she expected to see her own breath gusting out with her words.

She whispered. "Hi, Mom. It's me."

No answer. Of course.

"I--um--" She looked down at her hands. "Practically everybody's signed up for Moon Cross now. Max's dad is still a dickweed, but there's only a couple of people listening to him these days so that's good. Devon still wants to get everybody signed up, a hundred percent, but Dad says that's pretty much impossible and ninety-nine percent is damn good."

After her dad had hooked up with Devon, True had felt kind of weird about saying her name to her mom. Like a betrayal or something. Like a reminder that things changed. But Devon was too important in her life for True not to talk about her.

"It's really cold now, and . . ." She trailed off. Ryan's words scrabbled at the inside of her brain.

_You wait until it happens to you . . . there's only an empty body left like the wrapper from a sandwich. . . . There's just nothing left._

"I don't know why I do this," she said softly. "It's not really you, is it? It's just a memory. Not even mine."

She got up, wandering around the room.

"I guess . . . I guess I just want to pretend for awhile. That you're here, and I can be your kid, and you can be my mom. Not just, you know, biologically. For real."

She stopped at the end of the bed and looked down her mother's body, to her still face. Her eyes traced the innumerable tubes and wires that led back to machines. The slow, rhythmic beep of the monitors was like the drip of water in her ears.

They all suddenly blurred before her eyes.

"Is this the way you thought it was going to be? When you were my age, did you think, 'Yeah, I'd like to be, like, a vegetable in a room someday?'"

No answer. Of course.

"I wish you could tell me what you want." She hugged her elbows, shivering. "But you can't. You never will."

She turned to stare at the machines. The first time she had come in here, they'd been mysterious bundles of beeps and lights and numbers. Since the colony ship had come, Molly had taught her to decode some of the readings on Angie's machines, and Lynnie's.

Looking at her mom's numbers, True knew the brutal truth. There was nothing there. Just like Ryan had said. Everything that counted was somewhere else, and all that was left was an empty shell.

"I can't fix this the way I want to," she said. "I can't make it so I have a real mom, like Devon or Mrs. Ketchum or even Mrs. McNab." She looked away from the machines and down at her mom's still face--the lips that had not smiled in decades, the eyes that had never looked at her daughter.

No, she couldn't fix this so it had never happened. But she and her dad--they could change the way things were.

Her fingers crept out and touched her mom's. They were so cold she flinched, but she reached higher, brushing her fingers across her mom's slack mouth. Then she pulled them away and pressed them to her own cheek.

The closest thing she would ever get to a kiss from her mom.

She backed away until she bumped into the door again. Then she stood, drinking in every detail of her mother's face for the last time.

Her hand--the one with the almost-kiss still resting like a ghost on the fingertips--slid up and pushed the panel on the doorjamb. The lights flickered and went out.

Into the darkness, she whispered, "Bye, Mom."

* * *

Trent closed the door behind him and lay down on his bed with a deep sigh that turned into a groan. The neverending work wasn't as exhausting as it had been to start, but he still slept hard every night.

He rolled his head on the pillow to look across the room at the other bed. Though the room was very dim, he could just make out that it was empty. He let out another sigh, this time of relief. Two days ago, Ben had told him that he was signing his daughter Marie up for Moon Cross, and they hadn't spoken a word to each other since.

Trent pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes until lightning flickered behind his lids. What was wrong with all these people? Didn't they have any idea of what they were doing? Today Lynnie McNab had very calmly told Bess Martin that her baby would be born in fifteen days, and also that the baby didn't want to be called Morgana. How did she _know_ these things? Lynnie had grinned and said that the baby was dreaming. Whatever that meant.

Every time Lynnie looked at him with those big, dark eyes, or Uly with his calm blue ones, Trent felt his scalp prickle. It was as they were looking right through him, as if they could see everything he was thinking.

And Ben, Darla and Rob, Rajiv and Layla, Marsha . . . all his fellow Syndrome parents were rushing to make their children into freaks just like them.

Two quick raps sounded on the door. Trent lifted his hands off his eyes and looked at it balefully. If it was another former friend, trying to convince him to send Max along to those dirt-swimming monsters--

_Rap-rap._ "Trent?"

He sat up. Devon. He put his hands on his knees, clutching them into fists to stop himself from getting up.

"Trent? I know you're there, I saw you go in."

He looked at the ceiling, knowing he was being childish, not caring.

There was a moment's pause. "I just want to talk."

He made himself lie down on the bed again, concentrating on the barely-seen knotholes in the ceiling.

"All right," she said, sounding defeated, and in spite of himself, he sat up again. "Fine. This isn't the way I wanted to do this, but--" There was a moment's pause. "Trent, I know you know what I'm going to say."

He gritted his teeth.

"I know you have problems with the Terrians. I know you're af--that you don't like them. I know they are strange and startling and very alien to you. They were to me too. I was scared of them; I admit it. It's human nature to be alarmed by what you don't understand. But you came here for Max. You gave up everything you ever knew for him, for the chance that he could have a good life. That he could have a _life."_

Not like that. That wasn't a life. Turning into a half-breed, caught between two species? That wasn't a life. That was a sentence. Max wouldn't be his child anymore. He wouldn't even be Max.

"Look, please, I'm just asking you to think it over. The Terrians hibernate after Moon Cross. This is the last chance for three months."

At least they would be left alone for part of the year.

"When I put this expedition together, I opened it up to all the Syndrome families because I wanted us all to have healthy children. That's all I want, and I honestly the Terrian healing process is the best thing for them."

Deliberately, he picked up his feet and started undoing the laces, concentrating on ignoring her.

"It has to be your decision," she said. "And not just because the Terrians won't take a child from an unwilling parent."

Sure. That was what they _said._ Trent was going to be right next to his son's hospital bed all day tomorrow.

"You still have a full day. Trent, I'm asking you--I'm begging you--to look past your fear. To look past your anger. Just think about why you came here, and what's best for Max."

After a long moment, he heard her sigh, and then the sound of her footsteps as she walked away down the hall.

His shoes off, he lay down again and said to the darkness, "I already am."


	25. Moon Cross

Moon Cross

Lynnie's mom made her dress up.

"But Mom, I'm going to be underground for most of it," Lynnie pointed out, very reasonably she thought. "And it won't even fit right, I bet." She was much skinnier than Jen Beamer, from whom the dress had been borrowed.

"That doesn't matter," her mother said. "It's a special day and you need to look nice. Both of you."

"C'mon, Ma," Ryan grumbled, poking at the shirt and pants she'd laid out for him. "What are the diggers gonna care?"

"Terrians," Lynnie corrected him, annoyed. "They don't dig, they kind of . . . phwoosh." She flew her hand through the air, trying to demonstrate the motion of the Terrians underground.

"The phwooshers?" he repeated. "Nah. Doesn't do it for me." He grinned at her. She made a face back at him.

"Never mind what the Terrians do or don't do," their mom said, exasperated. "You are going to look nice tonight. Especially since this the first time in awhile that we don't have to fit anything over an immunosuit."

Lynnie had to admit that improved the ensemble. But she was still complaining about it half an hour later. "I bet Uly doesn't have to dress up," she said as her mom herded her out the door. "I bet his mom knows it doesn't matter."

Ryan slouched ahead of her, swearing under his breath. His hair, wet-combed, lay flat on his head like a coat of paint, and he kept trying to loosen the buttons at his throat. Brenda said, "Ryan, stop it."

"Rrrr," he growled, but let go of them.

Just outside, they ran into the Adairs. Uly wore black pants, a white shirt, and a disgusted expression. His mom and Lynnie's both said, "_See?"_ at the same time.

Lynnie traded resigned looks with him. They fell into step and he leaned over to say, "Pink?"

"I like pink," she said, and tugged her sleeve back up as it tried to slither down her arm. "'Least it's not silver. Are you nervous?"

"Nope," he said. "Are you?"

"Nope."

He glanced around and saw that his mom was deep in conversation with Lynnie's. "My mom is," he reported.

"So's mine. I keep telling her we're not doing anything dangerous."

He shrugged. The staffs they carried bumped against the ground as they walked. Uly had told Lynnie how to make hers, what to put on top of it to show who she was and how old she was. They were going to use them tonight.

They fell further behind, far enough for private conversation, close enough so their moms wouldn't try to check on them. "I think," he said softly, "she's scared it won't work."

Lynnie looked at him sideways, chewing her lip. "What do you think?"

He looked up at the moons. "I think my mom doesn't know the Terrians like I do."

"Nice for you," she said.

He gave her a smile, one of the ones that lit up his face. "You will too," he said.

The town square was full. All the other kids had to dress up, too, Lynnie noted. Apparently, you just couldn't get away from it, this parental mania for _looking nice_ because it was a _special day._

The sun had set less than an hour before, but all the lights in the square were on, creating a bubble of yellowy-white light. A constant babble of conversation, tense and nervous, covered the night sounds.

Uly said, "Lynnie, look." He pointed at one of the windows of the hospital.

She looked. "It's Max." Their one-time friend stared out the window at the crowd in the square. The look on his face made Lynnie's stomach hurt. "Why won't his dad--" she started.

"I don't know," Uly said, and he sounded angry. "It's not fair."

"Couldn't we just--"

"The Terrians won't take him," Uly said flatly. "Not unless his dad agrees."

"He'll never do that," Lynnie said.

Their eyes met. In silent agreement, they turned away from what they could not change.

True came up, with Molly. "Hey."

"Hi," Uly said.

She bounced a few times. "When are they getting here?"

"Soon," said Uly, Lynnie, and Molly, all at the same time.

She gave them all a thoughtful look. "Is that a Moon Cross thing, or a talking-to-Terrians thing?"

The three looked at each other and shrugged, baffled.

True sighed. "It's going to be weird, having more kids like you guys around here," she said to Lynnie and Uly.

"Better than the other way," Molly said.

"Yeah, I--"

Lynnie turned her head sharply to stare at the ridge just west of town. A moment later, a line of Terrians had appeared along it, rising out of the ground. They stood, silver-edged shadows with their tall, intricate staffs.

Uly said clearly, "They're here, Mom. It's time."

His mom, standing a few feet away, looked around. "Okay. Thanks, honey." She raised her voice. "Everybody? Can I have your attention? The Terrians are here."

A rustle went through the crowd. The babble peaked, then died away.

"Okay," she said. "We've talked about what to do. Now it's time." She turned and gestured to Lynnie and Uly, and only they saw how her fingers trembled. "Go on."

Lynnie started out of the square, Uly keeping pace. As they crossed the border from the warm yellow lights in the square into the cool silvery light of the two moons, she felt her stomach roll. In spite of what she'd told Uly earlier, all of a sudden, she _was_ nervous. Her breath came fast, and her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Distantly, she was aware of the others falling into step behind the two of them, but her entire focus was on the Terrians. Waiting.

As they climbed the ridge, the Terrians shifted, forming a huge, loose circle with an open space just where Uly and Lynnie would arrive. By unspoken consent, they stopped and turned just before that point.

Lynnie looked out over the assembled townspeople and thought _Wow. There are a _lot _of people in New Pacifica._

Uly's mom stood just below them, staring up at the Terrians. She cleared her throat. For the first time ever, Lynnie saw her stutter. "I just--I--I wanted to say thank you. Uly, can you tell them--"

"They know, Mom," he said.

She let out her breath and gave a wobbly smile. "Yes, I suppose they do." She looked over her shoulder, then turned back. "Neighbors," she said. "We've brought you the children of New Pacifica. We give them to you of our own free will, as promised."

Uly trilled, translating. _People with whom we share our earth, we have brought you the seeds of our ground. We release them willingly, as we promised._

The head Terrian inclined his head, and trilled back. _We take your seeds to ourselves. We will tend them with our greatest care, and release them to you when their hurts are repaired._

Uly said, "He says--um--he says they'll take care of them, and they'll bring them back."

Devon nodded, then bowed her head for a moment before stepping back, leaving the path clear for the parents to bring their children up.

For a moment, nobody moved. A terrible fear seized Lynnie, that everyone had all changed their minds at the same time. The Head Terrian looked down at Molly's mom. _Dreamer. You know what we intend._

She nodded, imperceptibly, and stepped forward with Angie in her arms.

Lynnie traded startled looks with Uly. Nobody had told them that Molly's mom could talk to Terrians. Well, geez. Nobody told kids _anything_.

The Ketchums hiked up the ridge and stopped just between Uly and Lynnie. Mrs. Ketchum knelt and let Angie sit on the ground. She took her hand and kissed her. Her dad gave her a kiss, too, stroking her hair with one hand. They both stepped back.

Molly fell to her knees before her sister and threw her arms around her. This close, Lynnie could hear her whisper, "It's all going to be okay, Angie. They'll take care of you."

"I know," Angie said, hugging her back.

Molly looked up at the Terrians and smiled, her lips trembling. She got up and rushed back down the ridge to stand next to her parents. They both put their arms around her.

Lynnie looked down at Angie. She had to hold herself up with both arms, but her eyes, too large in her sunken face, sparkled with excitement. A lightning-fast grin crossed her face.

Slowly, the other parents began coming up, setting their children down in the circle. Some of them let them go quickly, with only a hurried kiss before they got up and almost ran back down the ridge, as if they had to do it fast or they wouldn't do it at all. Some other parents held onto their children, hugging them, rocking them, whispering in their ear. Some cried silently, tears leaving silvery tracks down their faces. Some didn't speak at all.

The littlest sibs could be heard asking persistent, shrill questions. Their parents shushed them.

None of the Syndrome kids cried or whimpered, not even the tiniest ones. They looked around at the circle of Terrians, then at Lynnie and Uly. They were here; it must be okay. It had always been this way. Everyone had parents, a lot of kids had brothers or sisters, but only other Syndrome kids really, really knew what it was like.

Uly kept looking up at the moons. The smaller one had drifted closer to the edge of the big one. Lynnie leaned over to him as Mrs. Beamer passed, holding Brian's hand. "What is it?"

"Wondering if we'll have time to get underground before the moons cross," Uly said. "I think it'll work better if we do."

Finally, the last parent, Mr. O'Conner, had come up and left Marie in the circle. His hand tightened around hers, and then, with a visible effort, he let go. Lynnie and Uly waited until he'd walked out of the circle, then looked at each other.

"Okay," Uly said.

"Here we go," Lynnie said.

They turned their backs on New Pacifica and stared into the circle. Lynnie rubbed her thumb nervously over a rough patch on the staff. She knew how to sink herself into the ground, because she and Uly had worked on it, but this was other people--lots of other people--

She couldn't feel anything. Shouldn't she be able to feel something?

She looked at Uly. He frowned.

Lynnie wiggled her toes, then stopped. Of course. _Duh._ "Uly!"

His face cleared, and he said, "Our shoes!"

Leaning on her staff for balance, she wiggled out of her shoes and socks, heaving them outside of the circle as Uly did the same. She didn't even check to see where they landed. She buried her newly bare feet in the chilly grass, curling her toes and getting a little dirt in between them.

_Now_ she felt it, the sense of the earth beneath her, the deep heartbeat of the land itself. She felt it opening up--welcoming her--

She thought, _Them too, _looking at all the Syndrome kids. "Sit down," she said. "Everyone!"

Uly caught what she was thinking and added, "Put your hands on the ground."

That was important. They had to be touching it directly, no barriers, no cloth or rubber or metal. Just them and the earth.

At the top of her staff, sparks flickered. She looked up, and saw the moons, glowing, filling the sky with their pure light. She took a breath, as if she could drink in moonlight.

Then the earth opened up and took her in.

* * *

There was no thought of anyone going to bed.

Healthy children stayed awake as long as possible. The little ones stuck close to their parents' sides or sat in their laps. As the night wore on, John saw more and more sleeping bodies on parents' shoulders. The older ones wandered in restless, loose groups, whispering to each other. The Syndrome kids that had stayed behind were carted away to the hospital. Their parents hovered on the edge of the square, uncertain of their reception among the peers they'd opposed.

Without a word from or to anyone, Cameron started massive vats of soup and kept them warm all night, dishing it out for anyone who came over, adding water when it cooked down, starting a new batch when the supply started getting low. Dishes stacked up on the bar, and some of the parents came over to wash them. "We need to do something," a mother said shakily. "We just need to _do_ something."

John willingly gave up his dish towel and stepped out into the gathering space. Most of the town was milling around the room, their voices echoing off the ceiling. He saw his daughter and Molly sitting on the end of a table, their heads together. He went over. "Hey, you two."

"Hi, Dad."

"Hi, Mr. Danziger."

He thought about telling them to get their butts off the places people were going to eat, but decided it wasn't worth the moaning and groaning from True. "You doing okay over here?"

True swung her legs. "Uh-huh."

Molly smiled like the Mona Lisa. "It's gonna be okay," she assured him. "Everything's gonna be okay."

"Yeah?"

True nodded and swung an arm over the other girl's shoulders. "Molly's got the inside data, Dad."

The knowing smile turned into a big grin, and Molly put her arm around True's shoulders.

"Great," he said. "We could all use some inside data. You just let everyone know that."

"I told my dad," Molly said. "I think he feels better. Sort of."

"Good. Listen, I got a job for you two."

"Aw," True said.

"Aw," he mimicked, and pointed at the tables. "See all those bowls people left behind? How 'bout you take 'em up to the bar to get washed?"

"Why don't they do it?" True complained, but John could tell it was more for the look of the thing.

"They're distracted, kiddo. G'wan. It'll keep you out of trouble. Get some of the other kids to help."

"Hey," Molly said to True. "We can feed the leftovers to the goats."

"That's the spirit," John said. "Just don't feed 'em the bowls on accident." He left them behind and wandered around some, hands in his pockets.

Devon stood up by the slate boards, talking to some parents. As he drew closer, he heard her say, "I'm sorry I can't be more exact. No--no, I'm not sure how these things work. Yes, I know, Lynnie and Uly both came back in the morning, but this is a large group. Let's just see what happens."

The parents left, looking unhappy. Devon leaned back against the board and sighed, rubbing her temple. She looked exhausted, and miserable, and as tense as a overwound spring. Just over her shoulder, her own handwriting said, _Days Until Moon Cross: 0_

"Hey," John said from a few feet away.

"Hi."

"How you doing?"

"Terrible."

"What are you afraid of, Adair?"

Her head came up. "Excuse me?"

He put his hands on her slumped shoulders. "C'mon, what're you afraid of? That nobody will come back? That the Terrians won't fix 'em?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "What happened to 'everything's going to be okay?'"

"Everything is going to be okay. You know that. You're usually the first person to say it, even if it isn't. So what's all this?"

"I know," she said. "I know. I just keep thinking some disaster's going to blindside me, this close." Suddenly, her eyes glittered with tears. "I've broken so many promises to these people already--a beautiful, modern town, a state-of-the-art hospital--"

"Indoor plumbing," he contributed, wondering if he had a rag on him that wouldn't leave streaks of oil and grease on her face.

"--and all that's bad enough but if I break _this_ promise--this was the first promise, that their children would be all right here. If I break it, I don't know--"

"Okay," he said, gathering her close. "Okay, okay, it's going to be all right."

She looked at him suspiciously. "Are you just saying that to get me not to cry?"

"Hell, no, that's just a side benefit." He rubbed a thumb over her cheekbone. "Listen, Molly says it's going to be all right, and True tells me she's got the inside data."

Her back shuddered, but it was a sort of shaky laugh, not a sob. "Right. Okay. Since Molly says so." She put her head against his chest and let out a sigh.

He rubbed her back for a moment. "Over it?"

"For the moment. I blame it on overexposure to you, by the way."

"Oh, thanks." Since she seemed to have blinked back those horrifying tears, he loosened his hold. But he kept one arm around her. "Tell you what, let's go get some food. Cameron's got plenty."

"Food? Now?"

"C'mon, you know my mission in life is to make you fat and happy."

She smiled at that, but reached up and put her hand over his. "I don't know about fat, but you always make me happy."

"Even when I drive you nuts?"

"Maybe especially then."

* * *

The chronometer and the position of the moons both agreed that it was after midnight. Alonzo sat at the bar, staring at nothing. He thought, _I should go to bed._

He didn't move.

A voice surfaced from the sleepy background chatter. "Hey, 'Lonz."

He looked over his shoulder. Bess was coming toward him, her usual hip-swinging amble more of a waddle these days. "Hey," he said. He reached out and hooked his foot around a chair leg, dragging it forward. "Sit down, beautiful."

"Thanks," she said, sinking into the chair and rubbing her belly with a deep sigh.

"Feeling all right?" he asked.

"Fine," she reassured him. "Nothing. No contractions or anything."

"Too bad," he said.

"I'm only thirty-five weeks, Alonzo."

"I know, but I was kinda hoping to see Juniorina there before I--before the colony ship left."

She regarded him. "Honey," she said gently, "I don't think it's gonna happen. And I'd just as soon it didn't."

"I know," he said. "I just--" He broke off, and shrugged.

She propped her chin on her hand. "So," she said. "Day after tomorrow, that's the plan?"

"That's the plan."

She sighed. "Seems like it should be farther away."

"I know," he said, rubbing his thumb over a rough spot on the bar. "It always does."

"Did the Terrians say anything tonight?"

Alonzo's thumb stilled. He stared into space, seeing not the stacked barrels of cider and the mugs hanging from hooks, but the Terrians in their ring, the children inside. They'd looked right at him, but where there'd once been dream-whispers echoing in his head, there was now silence.

"No," he said.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well," he said.

He turned on the stool a hundred and eighty degrees, so his back was to the bar and he faced the room. It was quieter now than it had been earlier. The kids who had roamed the room earlier had curled up in booths, whispering or dozing with their heads down. The tables sheltered piles of sleeping toddlers, tumbled together like puppies. Their parents sat on the benches, talking in low voices. Nobody seemed to want to risk missing anything by going to their rooms.

He found Julia right away, sitting at a table with some other doctors and nurses. As if she felt his gaze like a physical touch, she looked over her shoulder at him. As their eyes met, the distance between them felt like a chasm to Alonzo.

Julia turned away.

Bess, who was not blind, said, "You plannin' to talk to her in the next coupla days?"

"Yeah, if she'll let me. I have to say good-bye." He turned deliberately to give Bess a smile. "But that's something I've had a lot of practice at."

Unusually for cheerful Bess, she did not return his smile. "Sorry to contradict you, honey," she said, tracing slow circles over her stomach. "But somethin' tells me you've never truly said good-bye to anyone."

* * *

Close to dawn, Devon dozed, her head on John's shoulder as they slumped in one of the booths along the walls. True was sacked out on the other side, her feet hanging off the end of the bench.

She blinked her eyes open, hard, and looked past John's face out the window. Dawn was coming. It couldn't be long now. A few hours earlier, that would have gotten her on her feet, but now she was so tired that she let her eyes slide closed again. _Definitely a holiday today_, she thought fuzzily, rubbing her cheek on the curve of John's shoulder._Nobody's going to feel like weeding or fishing._

A hand shook her shoulder. "Mom?"

That opened her eyes when nothing else could have. She gazed at her son, kneeling on the bench next to her. "Hi, honey," she said thickly. "How're . . . things?"

"They're good," Uly said. "They're real good, Mom. Come see." He took her hands and tugged. Dimly aware that even Terrian DNA couldn't give a sixty-eight-pound kid the leverage to heft a hundred and thirty pounds of mom, she got her feet under her and stumbled after him. In his sleep, John grunted and muttered something about spanners.

Uly pushed the door open and dragged her out onto the porch.

"Mom," Uly said. "_Mom._ Look."

She focused.

Children were pouring into the square, toddling, walking, running. All the frail children that had gone with Uly and Lynnie the night before were now tearing around in the light of dawn.

The door banged open behind them and Darla rushed out. "_Angie!"_

Angie hurled herself into her mother's arms. Darla cried her name over and over, until Rob came and put his arms around them both, and Molly wormed into the group.

Everywhere Devon looked, the scene repeated itself over and over. Weeping, disbelief, near-delirious laughter, hugging, kissing, cuddling. Parents had to touch their children, hands on skin, and look them all over, staring at the miracle of living child who had taken the place of their sickly, dying one. Devon knew that, like her, they would take the extra little "gifts" that the Terrians had stamped on their children's genes, just so they could watch them grow up.

She'd kept her promise.

Exhaustion, joy, and relief crashed together and welled up inside her. Her breath caught and hiccuped several times, and she put her hand to her mouth. It was only when Uly said, "_Mom?"_ that she realized she was sobbing, tears pouring down her face.

"It's okay," she gulped, wrapping her arms around him and holding him close. "It's okay, baby. I'm happy."

He didn't look convinced, but he hugged her back. "We did it, Mom," he said. "The Terrians made them better."

"I know--I see--" Emotion overcame her again. "I really am happy," she told him waterily. "All these kids--"

He rested his head against her stomach, and his shoulders sagged. "Not all the kids."

She turned her head to look where he was looking, and saw Max Sadler staring out the window of the hospital at the scene in the square. After seeing newly-healed children everywhere she looked, Max's paleness looked strange and unnatural to Devon. Her joy dimmed somewhat, and she stroked her hand over Uly's hair, feeling it fluff and curl under her fingers.

"How come it has to be this way?" Uly asked her, tipping his head so far backwards that she looked down into his upside-down face. "How come you couldn't just _make_ his dad agree?"

"Baby, Max's dad made his own choice. I can't make it for him. Do you understand that?"

"It's stupid," Uly said vehemently. "I thought he would change his mind after he saw--"

"There's some things that nobody can change."

He straightened up, then sniffed, hard. "Is Max gonna die?"

"I don't know."

"He's eight."

"But Dr. Vasquez really is working hard on drugs and therapies, and . . ." She let out her breath and looked up at the sky, where the stars were fading from view. "This place is good," she said on a whisper. "It's just . . . it's good."

"Hey, buddy," John said, sleep still thickening his voice. He knelt and ruffled Uly's hair. "Where'd you get all these kids from?"

Uly managed to return the grin. "The Terrians gave 'em to me."

"Good work."

"Where's True?"

John hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "Asleep in there. Go wake her up."

Uly took off, apparently forgetting that entire civilizations quaked before the prospect of True Danziger without her eight straight. Devon watched him go. "That wasn't nice," she said.

"Serves him right for being so bright-eyed around us," John said. His hand rasped against beard stubble as he rubbed it over his face. "Better be a rest day."

"Already is," Devon said.

He straightened up and looked around at the reuniting families. "Well. Did I tell you so, or what?"

She smiled at him. "You told me so."

He kissed her. "You did good, Adair."

She put her arm around his waist and leaned in. "Yeah. I know."

* * *

After John had held her for awhile, Devon had recovered herself and gone rushing off to organize something or another. He didn't see why she needed to, but he let her go. Probably good to work off some of those emotions.

He put his hands in his pockets and strolled among the reunited families. He had to clear his throat every so often and pretend that he had a cough.

True came through the chaos to meet him, yawning and scrubbing at her eyes. "Hey, baby," he said. "Is Uly still alive?"

"Ha-freakin'-ha," she said grumpily.

He pointed. "You see Molly and Angie?"

True looked, and her face softened at the sight of Molly letting Angie win a short footrace. "She's so happy," she said. "She's so, so happy."

"Yeah," John said. He looked at Rob, holding his wife as closely as John had held Devon a few minutes earlier. "Things worked out."

When he looked down at his daughter, the smile had disappeared, and she stood watching the people around her with an expression that hovered on tears.

"They don't always," she said.

"No," he said, wondering if this were the moment he'd been such a damn coward about--the moment to tell True about his decision regarding her mom.

She looked up at him. "Dad, I need to talk to you about Mom."

He couldn't do anything but stare for a moment. She'd found out--overheard, or, or-- Christalive, she knew what he was going to say already.

Then he focused on her expression. She _hadn't_ heard. She didn't know. She thought that what she was going to say was going to be a shock to him.

She'd done exactly what he'd always raised her to do. She'd faced the truth, unpleasant though it was, and made the tough decision. She was going to tell him that it was time to let go, stop clinging to something that had been gone a long time. To let Elle become a part of their past so that their future could happen.

And she'd done it on her own.

This time, he had to swallow past the lump in his throat three times before he could speak. "Okay, baby. I'm listening."

* * *

"Max," Trent said softly.

His son slid down into bed, turning his face away from the window.

Trent sat on his son's bed. Even from here, he could see the other children in the square, whole and healthy, untrammeled by machinery or weakness for the first time in their short lives. He turned away too, putting his arms around his son.

There were still a few parents left in the hospital, sitting by their children's bedsides. They, too, stared out the window at the changed children, and their eyes were filled with desolate longing.

Trent pulled his son closer.

"Everyone's fixed," Max said, his voice muffled in his father's shirt. "Nobody died. The creatures didn't take anyone away with them. I counted."

"Listen," Trent said, and floundered. "Max--I know it _looks_ like they're healthy--"

"They are," Max said. "They're running."

"But they're not human anymore."

"They look like it."

"They're not. I've told you about this. The creatures put pieces of themselves into Uly, and Lynnie, and now into your friends. They're not like us anymore."

"But they're_healthy_," Max whispered.

"You'll get better without the creatures," Trent said. He pitched his voice louder so the other parents who had held out could hear. "You hear me? We don't need them. You don't need to give up your humanity, Max. Do you believe me?"

Max swallowed, then looked out the window again. Then he deliberately turned away, putting his thin arms around his father's neck. The material of his immunosuit slid cold and slick against Trent's skin. "I believe you, Dad."


End file.
